


Heart's Needle

by ameliacareful



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A Darknet based hunter's network, Angst and Humor, As much Wincest and Destiel as there is in the show., Castiel Does Not Understand, Darkness AU, Gen, Irreverant Dean, Many weird monsters that the show wouldn't have the budget to do., Much codependency, Priests are complicated dudes., Sam is becoming a Jesuit, Snarky Sam, Spoilers through season 10, The Darkness is not a character it's a force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-12-10
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 55,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5226473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliacareful/pseuds/ameliacareful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This follows my piece, “Atonement”. (Hopefully you don’t have to read that one to enjoy this one.)  It’s an AU about the Darkness that I started before the season started so there’s no Amara and the Darkness is a huge diffuse phenomena.</p><p>In this version, Angels have their wings back and the attack dog spell was much less debilitating for Castiel.  </p><p>Sam and Dean use the kind of language I think hunters would probably use—the language of soldiers and sailors.</p><p>*     *      *</p><p>           Then halfway across the square Dean recognized his brother’s walk. Sam was wearing priest drag, a cassock and it made him look even taller, if that was possible. His eyes flicked past Dean to Castiel and he smiled at the angel. Cas put his hand on Dean’s shoulder.</p><p>            Sam looked at Dean and it didn’t register, didn’t catch, Sam just angled to walk towards them. Then Sam realized but Dean could see that seeing him didn’t make any sense. Something went funky in Sam’s brain like a laptop freezing and Sam faltered, almost stumbled and stopped, trying to work it out, funny Sam-confused things happening to his forehead. Then Sam staggered, his knees were giving way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reunion

1

            Dean woke in the dark on his bed in the bunker— _on_ rather than _in_ because he was lying on top of the covers. Usually when he woke up on top of his covers he felt hungover, still half-drunk, but he felt great. Hungry, even. It was funny because he was still wearing his boots which was a bad sign for what he might have done the night before, like drink himself sodden. He tried to remember.

            What came to him was flashes; not a bar but shattered memories of fighting, and driving, and pain. A shit ton of pain and Sam driving the Impala and talking to him in that tone that was too calm, the _don’t die_ tone that meant things had gone so fat south they were in Antarctica. Before that, things in the Darkness. Not the spider things but weird blood red people-things. So a fuck up and he should feel seriously fucked up.

            He didn’t feel fucked up at all. He felt good. Really, really good and rested. More rested than he could remember in a long time. Cas must have healed him and healed him hella good because he felt like going out and getting a big breakfast and driving and maybe getting laid.

            He turned on the reading lamp on the bedside table, and sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his bed. The bunker was dark except for his light. Shit that was weird. Things smelled weird. Empty in some way that he couldn’t explain.

            “Sam?” he yelled. The hallway was pitch black and in the Bunker that truly meant no light. He didn’t like this. “SAMMY?” He flicked the light on in Sam’s room. The bed wasn’t made which was wrong because Sam was kind of OCD about shit like that. He headed for the war room, flicking on lights in the bedrooms until he could get to a main switch. The Bunker was built assuming that you were turning on lights from the outside in, not that you were inside and all the lights were off, so there was usually a couple of lights on in the library and the kitchen. Because somebody being just showing up in the middle of the Bunker never happened. Couldn’t happen. The Bunker was warded against everything. Nothing could start in the middle and work its way out.

            There was a thin layer of dust on everything and a lone coffee cup in the kitchen sink dry as a bone. The stuff in the vegetable bin in the refrigerator was so far past rotten it was a dry brown crust but the fridge was still humming and cold. There was beer. Dean resisted the urge to take one.

            The Impala was in the garage, under a tarp. She looked clean and shining, but she was prepped for long term storage. “Baby,” he whispered, “what the hell is going on?”

            Most of the weapons were still in the compartment.

            He went back to the library. There were a couple of papers scattered around, but it was all leftover stuff like random notes in Sam’s handwriting about the Darkness, just scrap.

            He found a phone in his bedside drawer. It was beyond dead and wouldn’t even react when he plugged it in to recharge.

            “Cas?” he said. “Are you listening, man?”

            He didn’t expect Castiel to come right away but the flutter of wings was instant and Cas was there; tan trench coat, mussed up hair and blue eyes. “Dean,” Cas said. And again. “Dean.” Which was one more ‘ _Dean_ ’ than Castiel had ever said in greeting. Ever. It sounded like Cas was surprised?

            “What’s going on?” Dean said.

            “You were dead,” Cas said.

            “Whoa. You gotta work on your delivery, dude.” Dean ran his hand over his mouth but honestly, he wasn’t really completely surprised given the memories and the Bunker. “Is Sam all right?”

            “Sam is all right. He’ll want to see you.” Like that, Cas was gone.

            “Wait!” Dean said to the empty Bunker. Then, “Sonovabitch,” because what else was there to say? He drew a breath.

            A flutter, Cas standing entirely too close. “I’ve found where he is,” the angel said and reached for Dean’s forehead with two fingers.

            “Wait,” Dean said, “How long—”

            …

            “—have I been, fuck, Cas, tell me when you’re going to do that!” It was too bright, daylight, painfully bright after the perpetual night of the Bunker. They were standing in a sunny square paved in gray stone, bordered by pale flat-faced buildings somewhere Dean identified instantly as ‘not-America’. He had that feeling he always had when Cas flicked them around which was that not all of him had necessarily arrived here at quite the same time and some of his cells or molecules or something were scrambling to get back to their appropriate spots. There were guys crossing the square, some of them priests in black including a few wandering around in those dress/cassock things like from _The Exorcist_ or something, but he didn’t see a big guy in flannel.

            Then halfway across the square Dean recognized his brother’s walk. Sam was wearing priest drag, a cassock and it made him look even taller, if that was possible. He was walking with a short skinny guy dressed the same way. His eyes flicked past Dean to Castiel and he smiled at the angel. Cas put his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

            Sam looked at Dean and it didn’t register, didn’t catch, Sam just angled to walk towards them. Then Sam realized but Dean could see that seeing him didn’t make any sense. Something went funky in Sam’s brain like a laptop freezing and Sam faltered, almost stumbled and stopped, trying to work it out, funny Sam-confused things happening to his forehead. His mouth opened a little. Then Sam staggered, his knees were giving way, like he’d had a blow. Crap. Dean had seen Sam go down often enough to recognize the signs. Sam was going sort of sideways, his eyes locked on Dean. The skinny little priest next to him was grabbing Sam’s elbow but Dean knew that when 220lbs of Sam went no skinny little guy was going to do squat. There were laws of physics in action.

            Sam’s face was…was…

            Sam was on his knees and Dean knew that whatever the undercover story was here, he’d just complicated it but he didn’t care, not until he could do something about that look on his brother’s face. He had his hands on Sam’s biceps without knowing how he’d got across the square, only that he had some sense that he’d nearly knocked someone over and he was on his knees in front of his brother.

            Sam just looked at him. No salt, no holy water, no silver.   No test of shapeshifters. His hand reached out unconsciously and failed to quite grab onto Dean’s shirt.

            “I taught you better than this,” Dean said.

            Sam glanced up behind him and back to him and then up again.

            “It’s Dean,” Castiel rumbled from behind him. That was who Sam was looking at. Sam’s mouth shaped ‘Dean’ but no sound came out, just air.

            “How long,” Dean growled.

            “Five years, three months, eleven days, seventeen hours, and thirty-two minutes,” Castiel said, still behind him.

            Wait, five years? Did Cas say _five years_?

            “Sam,” said the skinny little priest, “are you all right?”

            “He is now,” Dean said.

#

            The skinny little priest was Father Paolo Agnoletti or ‘just Paolo’. Sam was not coherent. Dean got him on his feet and hugged him and Sam wrapped his arms around Dean but Dean could tell by the way Sam was breathing that this was just not something Sam could quite absorb. Paolo put them all in a very nice BMW 328 (decent enough car if you liked new German cars which Dean didn’t) and drove them to Sam’s apartment except for Cas, who said he’d meet them there. ‘There’ was in Rome. They were in Rome?

            Sam lived in Rome.

            “How are you back?” Sam asked.

            Breathe, Dean wanted to say. Instead he said, “I was going to ask you,” because he had assumed it was something Sam did but it was pretty clear that Sam hadn’t been expecting to see him. Sam had silver in his hair. A lot of it for five years—it made him look a little more like dad. “You’re a priest?”

            “No,” Sam said. “I’m a scholastic in the Society of Jesus.” He had folded up into the back seat of the BMW because he wouldn’t let go of Dean’s arm. He seemed unconcerned about talking in front of Paolo or about Cas poofing in and out in front of Paolo.

            “Jesuits never give you a straight answer,” Paolo said lightly from the front seat. He had great English and a strong Italian accent.  

            “That is a straight answer,” Sam said.

            “You’re a Jesuit? Aren’t they, like…” Dean tried to think of a word for them. They were some kind of special priest right?

            “Crazy?” Paolo supplied. “Trouble? Cunning? Arrogant assholes?”

            Dean decided the guy was all right. “Yeah,” he said.

            “I went to the seminary and I’m doing first studies, I’m not ordained,” Sam said. To Paolo he said, “ _Non ho intenzione di essere_ _voti finali_.” He sounded pissy which was better than sounding like he’d had a stroke or something.

            “ _Lei dice che_ _ora_ ,” Paolo said.

            “Bite me,” Sam said, smiling, but his hand was still gripping Dean’s arm and Dean could feel he was shaking.

            Sam lived in an old building. Paolo dropped them off in front of it. “There is no parking around here. It is a crazy place to live. Go change. I’ll pick you up in half an hour and we’ll feed your friend. Heaven knows you won’t think about it.”

            There was no elevator. Sam’s place was a third floor walk up. The floor was some kind of red tile, the walls were stark white, and in the living room/kitchen there was one window that looked over the street. Castiel was standing by the window looking out on the street. There was a red couch that was a skimpy as a futon. Dean looked in the tiny refrigerator. Water. On the tiny counter were protein bars. It was a very Sam place.

            He followed Sam into the world’s least furnished bedroom aside from Sam’s in the Bunker. “You don’t even have a TV,” he said. Sam was stripping off his cassock. Underneath he was wearing a white t-shirt and boxers which looked hysterically normal, like a sheik wearing BVDs under his robe or something. He still had the protection tattoo and he looked like he was eating and exercising. The closet only had black pants and shirts in it. Sam hung up the cassock. There were dirt marks on it from where Sam had gone to his knees in the courtyard. There was dust on the knees of Dean’s jeans.

            There was a duffle bag in the corner, just like this was a motel room. Sam dug out a t-shirt and jeans and it looked like there was flannel in there.

            “How long have you lived here?” Dean said.

            Sam thought a minute. “Almost two years,” he said.

            “Priests wear jeans?” Dean asked just to avoid saying, ‘you’ve never unpacked?’

            Sam shook his head. “Told you. Not a priest.”

            “You just like to look like that guy from the Matrix.”

            “Conference today on angelology,” Sam said. “I had to do a dog and pony show.”

            “People believe in angels these days.”

            “They believe in the Darkness so people are a lot less dismissive about stuff.” Sam was staring at him again, just standing there holding an old pair of boots. He looked like normal Sam except with fewer layers. He needed a haircut, like always. Good to know some things never changed.

            “The Darkness is still around.”

Sam nodded. “Cas said you were…” He sat down hard on the bed rather than finish what he was saying. (The bed was a double and still looked too small for him.) Sam was trying for words, swallowing. He was freaked.

            “Hey,” Dean said to divert Sam from whatever emo shitstorm was about to spill, “I just woke up and by the way, the Bunker needs someone to run a dust cloth or something.”

            Sam ran his hand through his hair and made all sorts of awkward embarrassed Sam movements before getting up and going back into the other room. “Yeah, I haven’t been back since…you want some water or something?”

            Dean trailed him. “Got anything besides power bars?”

            Sam shook his head. “I don’t usually eat here.”

            The apartment didn’t have any pictures on the walls. Nothing on any of the tables except a charging cable. And Cas standing by the window. It has less character than the hotels they used to stay in.

“Do you know why I’m back?” Dean asked Cas.

            “No,” Cas said. “I was surprised to hear you call to me.”

            “You look good,” Sam said.

            Now both Cas and Sam were staring at him like he should start dancing so they could shove money in his g-string and it was hard to know how to act.

            “Can you, I dunno, catch me up?”

            “Yeah,” Sam said, “sure. What do you want to know, like who’s president and stuff?”

            “More like were the Star Wars movies any good? Disney didn’t fuck them up?”

            For the first time Sam smiled. Grinned even. “The two out are not as great as the first three but so much better than next last three. I’ll download them.”

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of my Jesuit stuff is researched and based on acquaintanceship. My Italian is based on a rudimentary knowledge of romance languages and Google translate. As is my Latin.


	2. Fine Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How do you know Sam?” Paolo asked, raising his glass in preparation for a toast. Dean looked at Sam. This was his show.
> 
> “He’s my brother,” Sam said.
> 
> Dean nodded. “Yeah. His big brother.” Waiting for the inevitable height comment.
> 
> Paolo smiled, not managing to hide a flash of confusion. “I didn’t know Sam had two brothers. A welcome to Rome, Dean!”
> 
> They toasted, sipped. Well, Sam sipped. Dean took a drink. The Hankey Bannister was really smooth. Maybe he could get to like expensive things, too. As long as they weren’t douchy.
> 
> “I did have two brothers,” Sam said. “One was a half-brother. They were both dead. But Dean was the one that…you know.”
> 
> Dean wondered what ‘you know’ covered. “Croaked most recently?” he supplied. If five years was recent.
> 
> Sam took a strangled breath and said, “Yeah,” while looking at the swoopy bar and then his hands and then at the swoopy flower and pretty much anywhere but at Paolo or Dean.
> 
> “Testa di minchia,” Paolo said. Then clearly trying for levity. “I should have chosen a better restaurant.”

*    *    *

2

            Paolo came back. He’d changed out of priest gear and was now dressed in some casually expensive stuff that made him look like an Italian douchebag, like those jeans that cost over $100 and a white shirt that didn’t come from Target. Paolo apparently had a lot of money. He took them to some pretty fancy restaurant where he let some kid working as a valet park his car (nobody who cared about cars would let anyone like that touch their car, much less take their keys. Dean muttered ‘Christo’ at the kid just to check but he was apparently human.)

            The restaurant was one of those places where everything was swoopy. The walls were red and a little shiny, the tables had tiny lights that acted like private little spotlights above them. Each table had a swoopy vase with some kind of swoopy flower in it. The whole restaurant was a little like a sports car. Even the women in their expensive clothes and high heels were kind of swoopy.

            Paolo and Sam got wine. Castiel didn’t order anything. Dean was going to get whiskey but Paolo suggested a scotch called Hankey Bannister.   “Italians don’t know anything about American whiskey,” he explained. “Get something from people who know what they are doing.”

            “Paolo went to college in the U.S.,” Sam said. “He’s an expert on all things expensive.”

            “This is my treat,” Paolo assured him. “Sam never allows himself to enjoy anything. He might like it and feel a little happiness or something.”

            “Oh yeah,” Dean agreed, “Sam doesn’t do fun.”

Sam snorted.

            “How do you know Sam?” Paolo asked, raising his glass in preparation for a toast. Dean looked at Sam. This was his show.

            “He’s my brother,” Sam said.

            Dean nodded. “Yeah. His big brother.” Waiting for the inevitable height comment.

            Paolo smiled, not managing to hide a flash of confusion. “I didn’t know Sam had two brothers. A welcome to Rome, Dean!”

            They toasted, sipped. Well, Sam sipped. Dean took a drink. The Hankey Bannister was really smooth. Maybe he could get to like expensive things, too. As long as they weren’t douchy.

            “I did have two brothers,” Sam said. “One was a half-brother. They were both dead. But Dean was the one that…you know.”

            Dean wondered what ‘you know’ covered. “Croaked most recently?” he supplied. If five years was recent.

            Sam took a strangled breath and said, “Yeah,” while looking at the swoopy bar and then his hands and then at the swoopy flower and pretty much anywhere but at Paolo or Dean.

            “ _Testa di minchia_ ,” Paolo said. Then clearly trying for levity. “I should have chosen a better restaurant.”

#

            The menu was in fucking Italian but Sam had ordered him a steak and it was good and huge. Paolo kept the scotch coming. Sam’s plate looked like abstract art; some kind of fish and vegetable with, wait for it, a swoop of maroon sauce. Sam hadn’t eaten much but Dean hadn’t pushed it.

            Afterwards Paolo suggested they stay at his parents apartment. Sam’s place, he pointed out, was too small, and his parents were staying at their house on the coast. The apartment was classy as fuck. Clean. All that white furniture and a big modern glass chandelier that looked like icicles over a long rustic wooden dining room table that could feed a family of twelve. Weird art on the walls that looked like scribbles and shit. The bedrooms had huge beds and more of the classy art and every one of them had a flatscreen.

            He couldn’t wait until Paolo left so he could talk to his brother but when Paolo did leave neither one of them knew what to say. Dean felt weary, empty. Like everything had just drained out of him.

            “So, do you remember anything?” Sam asked.

            “Like heaven or hell or…whatever?” Dean shrugged. “No.”

            “You were in heaven,” Sam said. “Cas checked.”

            “Awesome,” Dean said. “Hanging in the Roadhouse.”

            Sam nodded a little too hard, standing there with his shoulders a little hunched.

            “You okay?” Dean asked.

            “Fine,” Sam said.

            Dean was kind of afraid to sit on the white couch. Didn’t know what to say to his freaked out brother-the-priest. In Rome. He wanted a drink because even though Paolo had tried to pour scotch down him, dying and coming back had not reduced his tolerance.

            “You want to watch Star Wars?” Sam asked.

            They were both relieved.

            After watching both movies they both went to bed. Dean’s bed was incredibly comfortable and he was tired but he wasn’t the slightest bit sleepy. He thought about figuring out how to turn on the television but it was right against Sam’s wall and it was probably all in Italian anyway.

            Sam was a priest, kind of. Who spoke Italian and had Italian priest friends. It was like without Dean, every five years Sam could become a new person; student at Stanford, hunter, Italian priest guy. Things Dean would never have guessed. _Everything you own is borrowed. Your car was your dad’s. Your music was your dad’s. Your profession, dad’s. Your home, the Bunker, was your grandfather’s. You’re a collection of borrowed parts and pieces with no real center. You can’t become something new because you never really were anything except, what was that thing from the dream? Daddy’s blunt little instrument._

            How did he feel about that? He knew he could feel some things. He could feel rage sometimes. He could feel it in a fight, especially if the fight got beyond shooting like when he had to grab something or punch it or get close enough to get a knife in it. He could feel pain, when something threw him and he hit the ground, or when it punched him or he punched it. He could feel when something made him move like when he first saw Sammy today. Some days he could only tell when he was feeling something really strongly, when it was turned up to eleven. He couldn’t always tell exactly what he was feeling but at least he was feeling. He wasn’t _empty_. No wonder people got tired of him. Hell, he got tired of himself.

           He gave up and got out of bed, padded out to the main room.

            “I figured you wouldn’t be able to sleep,” Sam said out of the darkness.

            “Resurrection jetlag,” Dean said. He could just make out his brother on the couch. He heard the clink of glass.

            “I found the Agnoletti’s bar.”

            “That’s my little brother.” Dean flopped onto the couch. It was easier not to worry about all that white in the dark. He found Sam’s hand and the glass, sniffed and smelled more scotch. The glass was heavy, probably some expensive crystal shit. The scotch was way above his pay grade. “So you’re not a priest? You just dress like one?”

            Sam made an amused noise. “Something like that.”

            “You’re allowed to bang chicks?”

            “Seminarians take a vow of chastity.”

            “Jesus, Sammy.”

            “It’s not a big deal,” Sam said.

            “Dude, it’s not healthy.”

            “A lot of people don’t keep that vow,” Sam said. “Paolo’s going to be hitting on you just as soon as he decides it won’t piss me off. You’re his type.”

            That almost worked to distract Dean—it was pretty tempting to ask what kind of type he was, but he stayed on course. “What about you?”

            Sam took a drink rather than answer.

            “Right,” Dean said. Of course, if there was some way for his brother to make his own life more miserable, Sam was going to find it.

            “Not like I was getting laid on a regular basis,” Sam said because Dean knew Sam was convinced he was cursed that anybody who he loved or got close to died. Dean wondered how Paolo managed to become his friend. Maybe because Sam had quit hunting?

            “You don’t even believe in the whole Technicolor Ten Commandments shit,” Dean said.

            “I know God exists, which is more than most people,” Sam said.

            “But all that stuff they do, like during services, you know, stand up, sit down, kneel. And bingo.” Catholics were the worst, Dean thought. Well, maybe Mormons, it was hard to decide.

            “Not a lot of bingo at the Vatican,” Sam said dryly.

            “C’mon, Sam.”

            Sam sighed. “The Vatican has the biggest library of biblical and occult writing in the world. Also the biggest collection of porn.”

            “Wait, really? Porn?”

            “Dating back to Roman times.”

            Roman porn? Was it any good? Sam was doing this to deflect him and it wasn’t going to work. “You didn’t do this to get into a library.”

            “No,” Sam said. “I…like it.”

            “You hate shit like this, all these rules and people telling you what to do, what to say.” Sam had been fighting with Dean and before that with Dad about being told what to do his whole life.

            Sam shrugged, silhouetted against the dim window. “I guess I’m not used to making decisions anymore.”

            “You quit hunting to do this.” Dean felt that hollow feeling from before. He wasn’t getting it, it didn’t feel like Sam to him (except the library part). _Running away, again_. “What about the Darkness?”

            “I’m working on it,” Sam said. “I do some stuff and I still do hunts.”

            “Really? Between dog and pony shows on angels? Sam, the Darkness is on us. We did this. Did you even try to bring me back?”

            “Cas said you were in heaven.” Dean didn’t have to see Sam to know what his face looked like. It was like all the other times that Sam had screwed up. He was looking miserable, doing the whole poor defenseless Sam thing.

            “Yeah, standing in a field with an animatronic Sam watching a fireworks display for five fucking years. My own private Disneyland. I’m sure that was just great.”

            “That’s not—”

            “While you read books. God damn it, Sam!”

            Sam said nothing. There was a brief flash of silver, some bracelet Sam was wearing catching the merest glimmer of light when he finally took a sip of scotch. Then Sam laughed quietly in the dark. “I don’t care.”

            Rage flared in Dean. “I’m going to bed—”

            “Having you pissed feels good. Feels normal,” Sam continued, like Dean hadn’t said anything. “Five years, three months, eleven days. Is that what Cas said? Every single day, I prayed to you.”

            In a day of unexpected Sam that was still completely unexpected. “You what?” Dean asked.

            “I’m going to turn on the light so I can get a refill, you want one?” Sam asked. Dean closed his eyes for a moment against the brightness of the lamp, then blinked until his sight adjusted. Sam sloshed a couple of fingers of scotch in both their glasses. “You want the light back off?” Dean shook his head. “Yeah, I pray to God. I talk to Cas, you know, the way we always did. Just keeping him up on what’s going on or asking him to stop by. And I pray to you, up in heaven, telling you about my day and shit. I know… knew you probably couldn’t hear me. I mean, from what I remembered of heaven it didn’t work that way. But Catholics pray to saints so I figured I was allowed.”

            “I’m not a saint,” Dean said.

            “I don’t think that’s your decision,” Sam said quietly. “But you’re not a saint anymore.” He glanced over at Dean, smiling a funny little smile.

            “What, now you remember what I’m really like?”

            “No, saints are dead. You’re alive.”

#

 

 


	3. The Michealine Initiative

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s going on?” Dean asked.
> 
> “Look, you don’t have to sit in on this. I mean, you can but you know you should really go check out the sites or something—”
> 
> “What else do I have to do? Trade wardrobe tips with the Pope?” Secrets? Again. Damn if he was going anywhere.
> 
> “They’re going to be talking about archangels, translating, you know,” Sam said quietly. “Do you want them to know about you and Michael?”
> 
> “What? Know what? You make it sound like we were going steady.”

*    *    *

3

            Sam, shirtless and dressed only in jeans, was on his cell phone speaking in Italian when Dean staggered out of bed the next morning. Sam’s cell was super thin but almost as big as a mini-tablet or something. Of course. He’d been dead for five years of phone updates; it was a wonder the thing didn’t make coffee. When he went into the kitchen maybe it had, or at least Sam had. The kitchen was a continent of stainless steal and white stone and a giant white coffee mug sat next to a stainless steal coffee maker that looked as if it required a technician to program.

            Like everything else in this place, the coffee was probably stupid expensive but it was good. Dean sat down at the end of the huge stone island where he could just see his brother slowly pacing as he talked. In the hard morning sun coming in through the windows he could see the five years on Sam. Still muscled. Still lean. Just the skin on his neck and collarbones looked older and there were more lines in around his eyes. There was that silver in his hair. His hands looked older, too. Five years in a day.

            How had Dean died? He could vaguely remember fighting off crazed people-things in the Darkness. They had the Full OJ, the Ford Explorer that Dean had rigged with lightbars and spotlights so they could see enough to drive. They were looking for Rowena who they had info had been in New Mexico when the Darkness covered much of the state. They had actually found her holed up in El Santuario de Chimayó, a church and pilgrimage spot in Chimayo, New Mexico. She had bargained them into getting her out of the zone of Darkness if she would let them copy _The Book of the Damned_. Dean had been sure there was a catch.

            Then as they left they were attacked by the things. The things had once been people but now they were red—not like people called Indians ‘red’ but the color of blood. He remembered Rowena running for the Explorer in one of her ridiculous dresses while he and Sam tried to hold off the monsters. (Guns worked perfectly fine on them but it was difficult in the dark.) Something must have happened. He remembered a lot of pain. Then more pain getting from the Explorer to the Impala—maybe Sam carrying him? Something about the Explorer being out of gas, maybe? It was a blur of badness that went on and on.

            “You found the coffee,” Sam said.

            “Yeah, hey, what ever happened with Rowena and _The Book of the Damned_?” Dean asked.

            “She’s in the wind,” Sam said.

            Oh Christ, another shit show. “You win some, you lose some, Sammy.” Dean tried to think of something to say before Sammy looked up with soulful eyes and said something like Dean died for nothing. “Where is she now?” he asked which was not really a brilliant conversation changer.

            Sam shrugged, a tiny painful movement. “I don’t keep up with Crowley’s mother issues any more.” He cleared his throat. “I, ah, Paolo’s going to pick me up. I’ve got to go to do some work this morning. You’re welcome to come. Or stay here and watch TV, explore the neighborhood, whatever.”

            Walk around not being able to speak Italian. Yeah. “How long do you have to work?”

            “I don’t think it will take the whole day,” Sam said.

            “I’ll go with,” Dean said. “You can give me a tour of Pope City.”

            The place had three bathrooms but it still didn’t have enough hot water. Towels, on the other hand, were so luxurious that Dean was pretty sure some law had been broken to make them, like blind virgins had spun them or something. He bitched about the hot water and Sam said Rome was so old all the plumbing sucked.

            Paolo came in wearing a faded blue t-shirt and jeans that had probably cost hundreds of dollars. He smiled at Dean in a way that made Dean remember Sam’s comment that he would eventually make a pass. Sam was still getting dressed. (One thing that hadn’t changed was the length of time it took for Sam’s hair.) “Samuel!” Paolo called. “Did Ekhard ring you?”

            Sam came down the hall carrying his boots. “He said there was a meeting at nine and then talking about the Michealine Initiative for twenty minutes.”

            Paolo said, “ _Stronzo_.”

            Sam said, “What?”

            “There’s new audio,” Paolo said. “He didn’t tell you?”

            Sam’s shoulders sank. “Fuck. No. Did you run compression on it already?”

            “I got it last night,” Paolo said. “I let it run over night. I’m sorry, bello.”

            “What?” Dean said.

            Paolo opened his mouth but Sam cut him off. “I do translation,” he said.

            “Like, Latin?” Sam’s Latin was pretty good but hard to imagine the Catholic church didn’t have really great Latin translators. But Sam had turned away and walked back to get his messenger bag.

            Sam climbed into the front seat so Dean had to sit in the back and all the way to the Vatican, Sam chattered about the things he was going to show Dean. “I can probably get us into some places during off hours,” he said, “so we won’t have to fight the crowds but I guess we’ll have to do The Sistine Chapel with the crowds.”

            Paolo drove the BMW through the crowded streets like it was the Grand Prix of Monaco. He whipped up to a gate and he and Sam showed ID to a guy in a yellow and blue striped clown suit pretending to be some kind of security (“Swiss Guards, Dean”) and there were some calls placed while the clown suit looked at Dean’s six year old fake ID but then word came down and they were finding a place to park. Cars looked out of place next to the old buildings.

            The inside of the building was weird, too. More IDs, and Dean had to sign in. It was kind of strange, with computers and modern desks in what looked like a movie set for a historical about Henry the Eighth or something. It was a warren of offices and hallways. There were no women, even the administrative assistants were guys. Everybody knew Paolo and a lot of them sang out “Ciao, Padre,” or “Ciao, Paolo!” A lot of people knew Sam but his brother was doing that shy duck his head thing so there were fewer ‘Ciao’s’ and more just ‘hello’ smiles.

            Sam was moving fast, long legs going two stairs at a time up stairwells, Paolo almost jogging to keep up and still falling behind.

            “Hey, hey,” Dean said, “slow it down, big guy, not a race.”

            Sam was nervous. Dean could keep up, people only thought he was short when he was around Sam but it was unlike Sam not to adjust his stride to Paolo. At least it would have been five years ago.

            “What’s going on?” Dean asked.

            “Look, you don’t have to sit in on this. I mean, you can but you know you should really go check out the sites or something—”

            “What else do I have to do? Trade wardrobe tips with the Pope?” Secrets? Again. Damn if he was going anywhere.

            “They’re going to be talking about archangels, translating, you know,” Sam said quietly. “Do you want them to know about you and Michael?”

            “What? Know _what_? You make it sound like we were going steady.”

            Sam did that thing where he smiled but it was more like a grimace. “I won’t say anything, then. I’m sorry about this, it’s… not fun.” He glanced back a Paolo catching up and then opened a wooden door that looked like it was at least a hundred years old—nice door, lousy hinges. Inside was a beautiful antique conference table. There was a window looking out on more buildings. No tourists out there so this was the business end of the place. On one wall was a flatscreen TV and on the other was a white board.

            “Sam,” said one of the men. He was wearing a priest’s collar and a black shirt.

            “Ekhard,” Sam said. “This is my brother, Dean Winchester. Dean, Father Ekhard Schönfeld.” Sam introduced the other two men in the room but Dean knew that this was the guy. Sam was nervous. This was the guy. Dean was already ready to take someone’s head off.

            “You didn’t tell him there was audio?” Paolo said.

            Ekhard looked…uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, Sam. I know they’re stressful. I thought this way you wouldn’t have so much apprehension.” Ekhard sounded German but he also sounded genuinely contrite. Dean tried not to associate him with World War II movies. All these people who spoke great English, made a guy feel stupid.

            Everyone was looking at Sam. Then Ekhard looked at Dean. “I’m pleased to meet you. I was under the impression that all of Sam’s family was deceased.”

            Dean looked at Sam who was staring at Ekhard’s laptop like it was cursed. “Dead’s a complicated state in our family,” he said.

            Ekhard looked confused. “I see,” he said, when he clearly didn’t.

            “Where’s the recording from?” Sam asked.

            “Kansas,” Ekhard said. “In the United States.” Like Sam wouldn’t know where Kansas was? Or there was another one? “Do you want to sit down?”

            Paolo indicated a chair for Dean. Almost everyone was ranged on one side of the conference table, leaving Sam alone on the other. Dean nodded at Paolo and went to sit beside Sam.

            “What is this?” he said to Sam.

            “Angels speaking Enochian,” Sam said. “Okay, go ahead.”

            Ekhard opened the laptop. It was a Mac, Dean noticed. He tapped a key.

            For a moment Dean thought there was a system problem. The room was wired for speakers and the sound was like feedback, a loud, earsplitting tone that sounded as if it could shatter glass. Dean had the urge to stick his fingers in his ears but Sam leaned away from the laptop, elbows on the arms on the chair, fingers tented under his nose, listening.

            As the sound went on Dean began to hear variations within it, harmonics and echoes, strange reverberations in his head. He was pretty sure they weren’t really there. He felt as if he’d heard something like it before and then realized, it was a lot like when he’d clawed his way out of the grave. He gotten to that abandoned gas station and Castiel had come, only he hadn’t known Castiel then and Cas was in his true form. Windows HAD shattered.

            This wasn’t Cas. He couldn’t have told how he knew that. He’d only heard Castiel once. But this vibrated down his bones and it resonated with him in a way that was curiously right.

            Suddenly he knew who it was.

            “FUCK YOU,” he shouted at his brother. “FUCK YOU!”

            Ekhard hit a key on the computer and it stopped but by then Dean had Sam out of the chair and had dragged him against the wall.

            “IT’S MICHAEL! ISN’T IT! ISN’T IT!”

            “How did you know?” Sam asked, genuinely surprised. Sam’s nose was bleeding but weirdly enough he reached out and touched just under Dean’s nose and came away with blood on his fingers.

            Dean shook him hard and let go and Sam half fell before he could catch himself. Then Dean pulled open the door to the conference room and slammed it hard behind him as he left.

#


	4. Multidimensional Beings of Celestial Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paolo offered to take them out to dinner again but Sam did this gay Italian thing where he thanked him profusely, bent down, air-kissed him on both sides of his face, thanked him again for the use of his parents apartment, did the air-kiss thing again, and stood and waved until Paolo drove off.
> 
> “Dude,” Dean said. “If you ever do that to me I will cut your nuts off.”

*   *   *

4

            “So you translate Enochian,” Dean said. He had a headache. Without anger to fuel him he was back to feeling exhausted. Not physically but emotionally empty, like he could barely bring himself to care. He wished he were in the Bunker. Sam had brought him ibuprofen and water and now they were sitting outside in a hot sunny courtyard.

            “Not very well,” Sam said.

            “I wish I had a beer,” Dean said.

            “The stuff, the Enochian that Bobby had in books?” Sam said. “That’s a kind of pidgin that angels use when they’re in vessels. It’s powerful for spells. I can’t read that or speak it but I can understand a lot of it because it’s actually just a version of angelic Enochian that humans can speak and hear.”

            “And that feedback shit?”

            Sam wouldn’t actually look at Dean probably because he felt guilty about not telling him what was going on. But Sam probably hadn’t expected Dean to recognize any of it and Dean was waiting to hear why Sam was an expert. God, but Sam loved being an expert.

            “Angels are multidimensional beings,” Sam said.

            “Yeah, Cas says that. So what does it mean?”

            “We’re in 3D, right?”

            Dean got that. “And time is the 4th dimension. Doo-doo doo-doo.” Dean sang the _Twilight Zone_ theme. Sam looked surprised. Dean grinned. “You watched a lot of science shows in hotel rooms, dude. I might have learned something.”

            Sam nodded. “There are ten or eleven or maybe twenty-six dimensions.”

            “Really? They know that?”

            Sam shrugged. “That’s what the math says. I asked Castiel and he thought about it and it seemed about right to him. A lot of those dimensions are curled up tight and before you ask me what that means the answer is, I have no fucking clue. You can ask Paolo and he’ll go all math on your ass.”

            “Paolo? The little gay guy with the expensive jeans?”

            “Paolo is the world’s foremost celestial mathematician,” Sam smiled slightly. “He made up business card. He’s probably the only celestial mathematician. Most of the time though he does theoretical physics which he says is just a kind of math.”

            Learn something new every day.

            “So a lot, like well more than half of the information that angels communicate is in the four dimensions that we can sense. The rest of it is not. Angels don’t communicate in linear time. Like time doesn’t move from beginning to end to them the way it does for us.” Sam was using his hands to indicate linear time.

            “This is not helping my headache,” Dean said.

            “Yeah,” Sam said.

            “Explain it like I’m five, Sammy.”

            “Okay,” Sam said. “Before our experience of time, Castiel existed in a kind of continuous past-present-future. His ‘now’ included him always knowing what was coming and what had been.”

            “Wait,” Dean said. “So before he ever met us, he knew he was going to meet us.”

            “He had a future ‘memory’ of meeting us.”

            “Okay.”

            “But when he met us, that future started changing, until it became a cloud of probabilities that kept collapsing and reforming.”

            Dean looked at Sam.

            Sam shrugged. “I know. That’s the best explanation I can get from Paolo. But back to Enochian. When angels are talking, it’s like they are having the whole conversation in any order they want because they already have the future memory of the whole thing. I could have said that bit about him knowing he was going to meet us before he ever met us before I said that angels were multidimensional beings and you would still not be confused because you can already remember me saying that multidimensional part.”

            Dean groaned and rubbed his forehead. “So how do you come into this.”

            “I can understand some Enochian. And I can recognize a couple of voices.”

            “The Cage,” Dean said.

            Sam nodded.

            “I know Michael and Lucifer’s voice. Although I haven’t told them it’s him. I just call him _Aliud_.” The Other. Well, Dean could see how recognizing Lucifer could open a whole pandora’s box of explanations. “What I don’t understand is how you recognized Michael’s voice?” Sam said. “You never…heard him…did you?”

            Dean shook his head. “No. I’ve only heard Castiel.”

            “Maybe…”

            “Spit it out,” Dean said.

            Sam finally looked at him. “Maybe in heaven?”

            “I don’t remember anything,” Dean growled. “Dicks.”

            Sam shrugged. They sat with their butts on the low curb and their knees up. He bumped his shoulder against Sam. It was baking. Italy was hot. Sam said he was sorry he didn’t explain better about what his work was. They went back in to cool off and listen to more archangel. Dean was kind of amused at how awkward everyone was. Priests probably weren’t too accustomed to people slamming their brothers up against walls in meetings.

            Sam listened again and this time, under the table, his hand ended up on Dean’s knee. The sound was like fingernails on a blackboard.

            “DOES IT HAVE TO BE SO LOUD?” Dean yelled.

            Sam nodded. “TO HEAR THE UNDERTONES.” After a bit, “THAT’S THE HAIL, THE ALLELUIA” Sam yelled. They listened. The whole thing was about ten minutes long and about eight minutes in, Sam pulled a box of tissues over and without looking handed Dean one. Dean found his nose was bleeding again. He could hear all those weird tones and undertones and reverberations but it didn’t mean anything to him. It just made him… feel. He didn’t feel bad or good or wrong or right. He just felt, well, he just felt it.

            When it ended, Sam rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

            Everybody waited.

            “Okay,” Sam said. “It’s Michael. Obviously.”

            “Can you understand it?” Paolo asked Dean.

            “Nope,” Dean said.

            “He just recognizes the voice,” Sam said. “Just for the record, Castiel was sent from heaven on a mission to guard and protect Dean and Dean has heard his voice. Eventually he was kind enough to befriend me but he shares a bond with Dean.” He gazed around at everyone.

            Ekhard looked at Dean, appraising him, clicked and typed something. Paolo rolled his eyes and gave Dean a looked that said, ‘Assholes will be assholes.’

            “The ‘Hail’ matches,” Paolo said. “It matches both the archangel signature and the Michael signature rather than the _Aliud_ signature.”

            “What’s the ‘hail’?” Dean asked.

            “Every time we get an angel recording, they all start with the same thing,” Paolo said. “Sam called it the ‘hail’ or the ‘Alleluia’ so that’s what we call it.”

            Sam shrugged, “You know, like ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’.”

            Dean wondered what these guys would have thought of Gabriel. He was pretty sure he knew what Gabriel would have thought of them.

            “Then it sounds like Michael’s giving orders, rousing the troops,” Sam said. “That’s the tone of voice. There’s a long list in there, maybe he’s naming battalions or garrisons? Castiel always says ‘garrison’. He ends with the ‘call to battle’.”

            “Did you recognize any names?” Ekhard asked.

            Sam sighed. “I can do this with headphones.”

            “Nah,” Dean said. “I want to listen. See if I recognize anything.” If Sam was going to have to listen, these fuckers could have their eardrums blown out, too. Dean would put up with a headache for that.

#

            Paolo offered to take them out to dinner again but Sam did this gay Italian thing where he thanked him profusely, bent down, air-kissed him on both sides of his face, thanked him again for the use of his parents apartment, did the air-kiss thing again, and stood and waved until Paolo drove off.

            “Dude,” Dean said. “If you ever do that to me I will cut your nuts off.”

            Sam laughed a little and pulled out his super skinny phone and called a taxi. “You want Dominos or Chinese food?”

            “You can get Dominos Pizza in Rome?” Dean said. “Why?”

            “You probably won’t like real Roman pizza,” Sam said. “It’s not like pizza at home.”

            “Chinese.” Dean hoped that was the same the world over.

            Sam got beer at the end of the street. Stella. It was that or Heineken. Dean’s head was pounding from a day listening to Michael rally the fucking troops and he really, really wanted an American beer and American Chinese food. He wanted either a crappy hotel or the Bunker. He wanted the Impala instead of crappy European cars. He wanted the first floor to be called the first floor instead of being the second floor. He wanted to know what was going on.

            He hated Rome.

            He hated Sam’s life.

            Which meant, if he thought about it, that he was fucked, which meant—

            —they were going to need a lot more beer because he sure as hell wasn’t going to think about it.

#

            Castiel came back that evening and sat. He stared at Dean a lot even for Castiel. Dean followed Sam into the kitchen and said, “What’s with Cas?”

            Sam handed him a stupid European beer and said, “He missed you.”

            Dean noticed the bracelet Sam was wearing again—it was one of the medical bracelets like diabetics wear. Sam caught his gaze.

            “Don’t worry about it,” Sam said, “It’s kind of bogus.”

            Dean grabbed his wrist.

            Cas said from four inches behind him, “It says Sam has seizures.”

            Dean jumped. “Goddamn it, Cas!”

            Sam smirked.

            Without stepping back, Castiel continued, “It’s in case Sam has a vision. He doesn’t like hospitals because they’ll do an MRI and make him stay 24 hours for observation, so the bracelet means he can explain that the ‘condition’,” Dean could all but hear Cas making air quotes behind him, “Is under control.”

            Dean took a deep breath. “Take a step back, Cas. In fact, how about if you go get us some more beer. Something American would be nice. Heisler or El Sol.” Dean waited until Cas had taken a step back and then dug out his wallet. He pulled out a couple of twenties and handed them to Cas.

            “You’re sending him to the US for beer?” Sam said, irritated.

            Dean shrugged. “Does it make much difference to you, Cas?”

            Cas shook his head. “No, Dean, it doesn’t make much difference to me if I go to the corner or to the US.”

            Dean smiled back at a fuming Sam. There was a flutter of wings.

            Dean let the smile drop. “What’s with the visions?”

            “You remember, don’t you? I had one in the church, when we were in the Darkness,” Sam said.

            “No, I don’t—wait,” Dean said. “You’re talking to God? Like you and the Big Guy are best buds now?”

            Sam’s face did funny awkward things. “No, we’re not ‘best buds.’ It’s only happened a couple of times. It’s just what Cas said. I was at the seminary and they made me go to the hospital. They thought it was a seizure.”

            “What the fuck did God want?”

            Sam’s mouth twitched.

            “What?”

            “I spend a lot of time with people who talk a lot about God,” Sam said, “but none of them have ever asked what the fuck God wanted.” And he grinned. Which honestly did things for Dean’s heart that he hadn’t known he needed after a long horrible day of angel noise.

            “Well, what did he want?”

            “He reminded me that I have a purpose. To, ah, stay the course,” Sam said. He walked around Dean and back to the main room.

            Dean followed him. “So God called to tell you to man up.”

            Sam plunked on the couch and found the remote for the flat screen. He resolutely avoided Dean’s eyes.

            “Sammy.”

            “You’d been dead for two years!” Sam said. “Okay?” His jaw did twitchy things and the television came on with a blare of sound. Dean jumped again and nearly elbowed an expensive white lamp. Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck. Sam swore and muted the television. He glared at Dean like it was his fault.

            “So God told you to get your emo ass in gear?” Dean said. “Well, for once I gotta say God and me agree on something.”

            “Bite me,” Sam muttered. Pissed, bitchy, maybe even hurt, but Dean didn’t exactly know what to do about that so he took a drink of beer. Sam looked through the channels. Dean tried not to think about 1. God telling his little brother to buck up and 2. his little brother needing to be told to buck up.

            There was the flutter of wings and Cas was back with a twelve pack of El Sol and a pizza box from that place in Pittsburgh that had the best pizza ever.

            Both Dean and Sam said, “Cas!” in relief.

            “I brought Dean’s favorite meat lover’s pizza as well,” Cas said.

            “Awesome,” Dean said.

            Sam found the Animal Planet in Italian and then found English captioning. Not that you really needed a lot of captioning to figure out what was going on, since it was frigging animals, for God’s sake.

            Cas was staring at Dean again.

            “Now you can ask Dean all those questions you used to ask me,” Sam said to Cas.” Sam nodded at the angel. “Cas used drop by a lot and ask me about you. Like why did you enjoy gambling.”

            “I don’t really, I mean, gambling’s not exactly—” Dean stuttered. Cas had been ‘dropping by’ asking Sam about him? While he was dead? The thought of Sam and the angel having weird little girl talks about him was creepy.

            “I was confused,” Cas said. “I knew you enjoyed poker and often bet money on pool games.”

            “That’s not gambling,” Dean said.

            Sam settled back on the couch, looking smug.

            “That is exactly what Sam said,” Cas agreed. “Sam tried to explain how poker is not a game of chance for you but I’d like very much if you could explain how you bluff.”

            “Well, it’s all about tells,” Dean said cautiously. Cas didn’t move and yet it was as if he had leaned forward. As if he wanted to absorb every word from Dean. If anything his eyes get brighter blue, more intense. Sam handed Dean a piece of pizza on a napkin. Dean looked at the expensive white couch. “Maybe we should eat at the counter in the kitchen,” he said. At least Cas stopped looking at him for a moment while they moved the pizza. Then the doorbell rang with Chinese.

#

 


	5. Like God's Own Aftershave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paolo shrugged, “Sam will not talk about himself. You ask him and you realize later he has not actually answered and you’re talking about when you saw your grandmother’s ghost or something. Sam is very guarded.” Again, more hand gestures. “This, staying here, taking you to dinner, is the most Sam has ever let me do for him. He could ask for so much, you know. They would ordain him immediately, raise his stipend. He could rise in the church if he was that kind of man.”
> 
> “Sam?” Dean asked. He could believe Sam wouldn’t ask for money, wouldn’t ask Paolo for anything. It was the way their father had raised them. But he couldn’t imagine the Catholic Church offering Sam some sort of corner office. He didn’t know they even had a corner office.

*    *    *

5

            The next day, Castiel trailed them through St. Peters and the Sistine Chapel. St. Peters was like the expensive version of a lot of whorehouses. A lot of gold and red and way too much bling. Dean learned that not only had Paolo and the people on what he thought of as ‘the angel committee’ met Castiel, but Castiel had met the Pope. As had Sam. Cas said he had a nice soul but his comment felt weirdly polite (because when had Cas ever been polite?) Sam said he wasn’t a douche, unlike, say Michael. Or Crowley. Who were the only other heads of state that Sam had met.

            Besides God, Dean thought.

            Sam had promised to assist Paolo at a memorial mass. He suggested that Dean and Cas sight see but honestly Dean was tired of looking at history and being dutifully impressed—Balduccino blah blah blah, Michaelangelo, blah blah blah, bones of St. Peter, blah blah blah (the bones would have probably been useful in a hex bag but Cas said they weren’t the real bones.) That empty feeling had dogged Dean all day but he had tried to look as if he gave a rat’s ass.

            Now he was sitting in an uncomfortable pew at the back of a chapel next to an angel in a trench coat, waiting for mass to start. There weren’t very many people at this memorial mass.

            “You like these things?” Dean asked Cas.

            “What things do you mean?”

            “You know, mass and stuff.”

            The angel considered this for a moment. “I always like when humans pray to my Father. I’m not sure why they have to make it so complicated.”

            The chapel was small and not open to the public. The ceiling was painted like a sky and had cupids looking down and laughing. The walls were decorated with paintings of sad eyed saints with their hands splayed against their chests as if they had heartburn.

            Dean was nodding off when the organ finally started. Paolo looked resplendent in white satiny priest robes with gold trim. Three men followed him, one of whom was Sam who wore some kind of white robe over his long black cassock. It made him look about twelve feet tall. They genuflected in front of the alter.

            “ _In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti,_ ” Paolo said.

            “It’s in Latin!” Dean hissed, irritated.

            “Latin is the language of the Vatican,” Cas whispered back.

            Dean leaned his head back against the pew. “Wake me up when they’re done,” he whispered. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept in church.

            He couldn’t really, of course, because just when he would start dozing, there would be a blast of organ music. He opened his eyes and watched Sammy. The kid knew his shit. Would be a great thing undercover. People talked to priests. They thought they were harmless (except when they were afraid they were creepy pedophiles.) Sam would have them eating out of his hand. Too bad it looked like Sam had a place here and probably wouldn’t go back to hunting.

            The thing with the angels. Sam had explained he’d had another vision where God had told him that just as the old pagan Gods were made stronger by people believing them, the archangels were made stronger by prayer. The Pope had started some sort of giant ‘pray for St. Michael’ thing and now that dick was getting pumped with prayer energy from Catholics. They obviously couldn’t start a ‘pray for Luci’ drive but some things you just couldn’t help. Sam had probably done more to battle the Darkness by getting millions of people to turbo charge Michael than Dean could ever do killing things. Enough to make a guy wish he could go back to being dead.

            Sam poured water over Paolo’s fingers so Paolo could pretend to magically turn a cracker into human flesh—Catholics really were into magic, even if they didn’t like to think of it that way. People ate the body of Christ and drank the blood of Christ, (ritual cannibalism? Catholic vampirism?) his very tall brother looming behind very short Paolo as they administered crackers and wine. That meant it was almost over. Dean straightened up and stretched. Paolo did all the fussy dishwashing bits; putting the cup and the plate and the leftovers away. Even Sam looked distracted. That made Dean feel better.

            Paolo did the whole, it’s over, go in peace thing.

            Sam touched his forehead like he had a headache— Not a headache. Vision. The organ swelled in some processional hymn and Paolo came around the alter. The other two guys—both really young, Dean noted absently, came to follow, but Sam was gripping the pew behind him.

            Visions always took him down. Fuck, Sam, could you stop falling over? You’re 6’4”, that’s a lot of down to fall. Second time Sam had gone down in what, less than a week? Dean got down to the end of the pew. People were starting to exit but he pushed between them, eyes on Sam. “Sammy!” he said, hoping his brother could hear his voice, some kind of lifeline. He felt it now, that strange calm, that serenity, that damn holiness washing off of Sam in waves like God’s own aftershave.

_You can’t have him, he thinks. Other people are turning, not even knowing why, drawn by the waves of something; sacredness, presence. He’s got Sammy’s arm and he’s lowering him even as Sammy’s eyes are rolling back in his head. He’s got Sammy’s head in his lap. “You’re okay, kiddo,” he’s saying, “I’m right here.” Which is stupid because Sam is more than okay. He takes Sam’s limp hand, that stupid med-alert bracelet shining._

_Cas is standing beside them and people are respecting their space. Paolo is on the other side on one knee, mouth in an ‘o’._

_You give me back my brother, Dean Winchester thinks fiercely at God._

#

            They ended up in the back room, the sacristy, the place where everybody changed clothes. There were a lot of wooden closets. Sam sat, holding a bottle of water that he was not drinking while Italian EMTs questioned him and he and Paolo answered. Apparently Sam’s Italian was not as great as Dean thought, or at least not so great when he’d just come out of a vision. He looked spaced but kept saying he was fine.

            Cas’ eyes were shining. He kept looking at Dean like someone had given them a present. Dean wanted to throttle him. He also didn’t want to hear what God told Sam. He was pretty sure he knew what it was. ‘Hey, Sam, as God I just wanted to point out, you’ve got a purpose. Ignore your alcoholic, asshole, murderous brother who had the Mark of Cain and now has the death of innocents on his hands. You’ve got friends, you’ve got the freaking Pope, you’ve got the whole Catholic church to fight the Darkness. You’ve got Me. What do you need with a fifty year old car and a bunch of cassette tapes?’

            And really, who was Dean Winchester to think ‘Take care of your brother’ meant jack shit when Sam’s co-pilot was the Supreme Being? His whole life his brother had been the boy with the demon blood and now Dean knew that he kind of liked being the guy that heaven had picked versus the one that hell wanted. Angels were feathered dicks but still, demons alliances sent you to Hell. And he was the one who’d done Spring Break with Crowley.

            He got up, thinking he’d go out and walk around but Sam said, “Dean!” in that way that was like a leash.

            “Right here, Sammy,” Dean said and sat back down.

            Sam had started to move towards Dean but an EMT put a hand on Sam’s shoulder and for a moment Dean thought, big mistake buddy, he can eat a werewolf for breakfast. Sam just answered a question, his eyes flicking nervously back to Dean. Dean focused in on Sam. Put a big brother face on. Watched Sam slowly settled.

            He was really tired of it all. All these religious guys and Cas looking at Sam like he was some sort of saint. Sam, who couldn’t bring himself to tell Dean about all the angel stuff until he was listening to goddamn Michael. Sam who pretty much never explained anything, who left when the going got tough. The fucking queen of martyrdom. They should try living with the guy if they thought he was so awesome.

            Hold it together Winchester. You already slammed St. Samantha against a wall, they’re going to think you kick puppies.

            The EMTs were packing up, Sam nodding and Paolo promising and Dean didn’t even need to know Italian to know this drill; yes, he’ll follow up with his doctor, yes; he had someone with him, thank you very much. Time to get the kid (he’s thirty-seven, Dean reminded himself) back to Paolo’s parent’s too white apartment and let him sleep off his holy hangover.

            “You want to get changed and then get back?” Dean asked.

            “Dean—” Sam reached to grab his arm.

            “Get some rest first,” Dean said, stepping back, looking at the two young guys who were, like Sam, still in their priest drag. Back in the day, when Sam had had visions, Dean had made him tell what he saw right away, even through blinding Hell induced migraines and they’d driven while Sam tried to sleep off the effects but that was when the visions were from demon blood, about people dying and shit. This could wait.

            “It was about you,” Sam said. “It was a message for you.”

            Dean felt his breath catch.

            Castiel looked at Dean, his head tilted.

            “You were brought back to hunt,” Sam said. “To be a hunter in the Darkness.” It didn’t make Sam happy.

            “ _Venator in tenebris_ ,” Paolo murmured. Like saying it in Latin made it some sort of title.

            “Right,” Dean said. “God brought me back to life because archangels aren’t doing the job.”

            Sam managed to grab his arm this time and damn if the kid’s fingers weren’t cold. “It was just, not words or anything. I just saw you.”

            “I can’t hunt here,” Dean said.

            Sam got that curly wrinkle between his eyebrows.

            “There are a few spirits in the Vatican. It’s had several centuries of people living and dying,” Cas offered. “But they don’t seem to do any harm.”

            Sam coughed to cover amusement. “I think he meant he needs to go back to America, Cas.”

            “You haven’t taken care of the local ghosts?” Dean asked.

            “Didn’t know about them,” Sam said. He was pale. He always looked wiped out after a vision. He still had his hand clamped on Dean’s forearm, cold fingers clutching his sleeve. Sam didn’t look like a twenty-two year old anymore but in some ways that insistent demand was worse when it wasn’t just need.

            “What did you see?” Dean asked.

            “You. In the Darkness. You were cutting your palm with an angel blade,” Sam said. “Someone was fighting nearby. There were monsters, like white bugs. Spider things. A lot of them, Dean.”

            Like a last stand? Go out in a blaze of glory? Dean didn’t think he believed in glory anymore. A three day old corpse smelled pretty much the same whether death was glorious or an indignity. “You got a headache?” Dean asked.

            “My Father doesn’t give Sam headaches,” Cas said solemnly.

            Sam looked at Dean and Dean rolled his eyes, Sam’s eyes crinkled in a hidden smile. “Okay, Mother Teresa,” Dean said. “Let’s get you somewhere you can take a nap.”

#

            Paolo drove them to the apartment and Sam staggered back to his bedroom. Paolo stood uncertainly in the living room looking at Dean and then at Cas and then back to Dean.

            Dean wanted him gone. Wanted to find a bar. He was sure there were bars all over the world. “Um, you want a beer?” Dean said.

            “I’ll get myself a glass of wine,” Paolo said. “Would you like one? My mother, she’s proud of her wines.”

            Dean said no, beer was fine. Cas accepted a glass of wine and stood by the window stiffly holding a glass and Dean wondered how many dollars worth of molecules Cas was not enjoying. Paolo threw himself into a chair, casual as one of those blanket thingies on a couch on the ‘decorating your house’ television channel. Dean remembered what Sam had said about the guy hitting on him and started trying to think of how to turn him down without making the guy pissed off at Sam but then thought he probably wouldn’t in front of Cas.

            “You have everything you need?” Paolo asked.

            “Yeah,” Dean said, waving his beer bottle. “Thanks for letting us stay. We’re not used to, you know, places this nice.”

            Paolo looked around vaguely like he had just noticed the place. “Oh, it is nothing. My father is in finance. Family business.”

            “Finance? So how did he feel about the whole, you know, priest thing?” Dean asked. John would have lost his shit if Sam had announced he was going to be a priest.

            Paolo made a gesture with his hands, “He didn’t care, I have two older brothers and a sister. My older brothers are in the firm. My sister is a lawyer. My uncle, my mother’s oldest brother, is a cardinal. So in my family it is also a kind of business.”

            “Huh,” Dean said.

            “What did your father do?” Paolo asked.

            “He, uh, he was a hunter. Like Sam and me. It’s the family business. Sam never mentioned?”

            Paolo shrugged, “Sam will not talk about himself. You ask him and you realize later he has not actually answered and you’re talking about when you saw your grandmother’s ghost or something. Sam is very guarded.” Again, more hand gestures. “This, staying here, taking you to dinner, is the most Sam has ever let me do for him. He could ask for so much, you know. They would ordain him immediately, raise his stipend. He could rise in the church if he was that kind of man.”

            “Sam?” Dean asked. He could believe Sam wouldn’t ask for money, wouldn’t ask Paolo for anything. It was the way their father had raised them. But he couldn’t imagine the Catholic Church offering Sam some sort of corner office. He didn’t know they even had a corner office.

            Paolo looked at Castiel who was standing perfectly still, holding his untouched wine. “There are not many, not _any_ other people who keep the company of angels,” he said rather softly. “Just you and your brother.”

            “I’m not going to be a priest,” Dean said. “I’m not that guy, you know. No offense.” He looked at Castiel again. “Hey, Cas, you want to sit down? You’re being creepy.”

            Paolo looked a little non-plussed. Cas came and sat on the couch near, but not too near Dean. He was apparently learning personal space.

            “Do you play poker?” Cas asked Paolo.

            “I…I have,” Paolo said.

            “I am told it is not actually gambling,” Cas said earnestly.

            “It’s a game of skill,” Dean said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I gotta ask you, do you think Sammy’s happy here?”

            “Happy?” Paolo asked, thoughtful.

            “Okay, I get it. Sam doesn’t exactly do ‘happy’. But you know what I mean. Like, he’s got a good thing here.”

            Cas tilted his head, studying Dean.

            Paolo thought. “He’s a lot better than when I first met him.”

            “Like the priest school or something.”

            “He heard the angels.” Paolo told Dean he’d been teaching at Georgetown in Washington D.C. He was part of this new group studying these recordings that had been matched with two sightings of angels. It was unusual because the church really didn’t believe in miracles much these days, most sightings of the Virgin Mary and miraculous claims could be disproven, but now with the arrival of the Darkness everything had changed. Paolo’s expertise was a kind of algorithm that could filter information and the others had flown from Rome to see if he could get any kind of information out of the recordings. They were using a conference room in the library.

            Georgetown University is the oldest Jesuit university in the United States and Sam was looking for a book for a hunt.

            “We are playing the sound for the fourth or fifth time and this very tall homeless looking man is suddenly standing in the doorway. Ekhard says, ‘Can I help you?’ in his very German Oxbridge way and the man says, ‘That’s Enochian. How did you get a recording of that?’” Paolo smiles a little. “It was your brother, of course. We did not even know about Enochian. He told us it was the voice of the Archangel Michael. I thought he was a crazy person.

            “He opened up his laptop, showed us Enochian and explained that it was a version of the language that humans could pronounce. He told us about the ‘Hail’ and that was the one bit of information I could verify, that the recordings started with a kind of signature—we had more recordings, but just the two sightings linked to them. He told us that it was the Archangel Michael. Then he got a nosebleed and it wouldn’t stop so I took him to the ER. The wait was very long so he said he would step outside and he did. Then I was worried he would, you know, what is the word,” a fluttering hand, “Faint! but I got there, and Castiel appeared to stop the nose bleed. Then I knew he was telling the truth and my whole life was not what I had thought.” Paolo grinned. “Now I have met Castiel.” He looked at the angel. “Now I have felt the presence of God. Now rising in the church does not seem so important, you know? I know you, I know your brother. I am in the presence of saints. It makes me feel very foolish, very often.”

            Dean smirked. “Saints? Dude, I died and went to Hell once already.”

            “But the other times you’ve gone to Heaven and Purgatory,” Castiel pointed out. “And you are slated for Heaven, Dean.”

            Dean thought of the things he’d done while he had the Mark of Cain. “Yeah, we’ll see,” he said.

            “This is a joke?” Paolo said, sounding weirdly like Cas.

            “No. Dean never gets my jokes,” Cas said.

#


	6. Rule 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m a hunter, Sammy. You,” Dean waved out at the street, at the buses and the little European cars. At the pretty girls on scooters and the boys on motorcycles. At the people speaking Italian and all the history and painters and shit. “You can fit in a place like this. You do more good in the world charging up Micheal’s batteries than five hundred hunters killing vamps. Your big brain, little brother. Your big smart brain. You’re like some race horse dumped in a family of mules.”
> 
> “You’re my brother,” Sam said, “and you’re smart. You’re the best hunter in the world.”
> 
> Don’t look so sad, Sammy, don’t look at me like you’re on your knees and I’m going to cut your head off.
> 
> Dean was so damn drunk. “Cas, tomorrow, you gotta take me home.”
> 
> “I will Dean,” Cas promised.
> 
> “You’re my brother,” Sam repeated.

*   *   *

6

            The next day Sam made a call in the morning and then didn’t go to work at all. His phone rang incessantly for an hour and he turned it off. He dragged Dean out and bought him some clothes. (“I get paid, Dean. They pay for my housing and I get a stipend. I can buy you some boxers and t-shirts and jeans. Otherwise, _dude_ , you’re getting ripe.”) It drove Dean nuts that he didn’t know how much a Euro was and Sam wouldn’t tell him.

            After a change of clothes there was food followed by the Colisseum. First cool thing that Dean had seen in Rome. Sam got to be an expert and explain shit (always made him happy to do that) but at least it was about animals tearing people apart and types of gladiators. They argued about what kind of gladiators they would have been. Sam wanted the trident and the net because of reach. Dean wanted the short sword and shield because nets were for wusses. They had paninis and beer and gelato, which turned out to be a fancy name for weird flavors of ice cream. Cas was gone for part of the day but around four Sam found them a bar—not a dive with a pool table but a tiny place on a side street. It had too many tables and chairs in too small a space and Sam folded like some sort of origami crane to sit. Sam dropped his head, closed his eyes, and told Cas their location as if he was praying.

            Cas walked in less than a minute later.

            Sam was getting more normal around Dean but Cas still looked at him like he was a glazed doughnut and Cas was on World’s Biggest Loser.

            “So glad Italians drink their beer cold,” Sam murmured. “Brits are crazy.”

            “What’s with the staring? Didn’t you visit me when I was dead?” Dean asked Cas.

            “I’m not welcome in heaven,” Cas said.

            Sam glared at Dean.

            “What?” Dean snapped. “It’s creepy.”

            “We missed you!” Sam said.

            “Don’t be pissy!” Dean said.

            “Fine, we never thought of you once.”

            “Paolo thinks you’re a saint,” Dean said. “And he’s got a thing for you.”

            “Paolo has a thing for every man that breathes. He has a thing for Cas but he can’t think about it because Cas is an angel.”

            Cas said, “I don’t understand why that is an issue.”

            “He’s come out to his family as gay but he hasn’t come out as angel gay,” Dean said.

            Sam’s jaw did that thing it did when he was considering fraticide.

            “Is that on the Internet?” Cas asked.

            “Rule 34,” Sam said.

            Dean and Cas looked him.

            “That means yes,” Sam said.

            They went from bar to bar eating pizza with crust like a cracker and Sam’s Italian apparently deteriorated until Cas had to take over. At each bar, Cas dutifully held a glass of beer that he didn’t drink and Sam and Dean argued over things like whether _Rocko’s Modern Life_ was a better cartoon than _Ren and Stimpy_. (Sam said _Rocko,_ Dean said _Ren and Stimpy_. Both agreed _Batman, The Animated Series_ was the best, hands down.)

            Maybe Rome wasn’t so bad.

            The next day it was a bunch of Roman ruins at a place called Palentine Hill and the bar started at 3:00 instead of 4:00. Dinner was a little more organized and Sammy got to explain about antipasta and pasta and prima and seconde which Dean mostly ignored. The portions were really small but the food was pretty good and since they brought four different little meals it was okay.

            At some point he found himself saying, “Sammy, I gotta go hunt. I gotta go back.”

            Sam was drunk but you had to know him to know that he wasn’t just drunk, he was _drunk_. “Okay, Dean.”

            “You’re good here,” Dean said. “Paolo told me you’re doing good here. You could be a bigwig if you want.” Dean pointed to Sam. “You could probably be pope.”

            “I don’t want to be pope,” Sam said. “I don’t think I could be pope.”

            “You don’t have to be,” Dean explained. “It’s okay. You got people praying for Michael. Maybe you should get people praying for Cas.”

            “If that’s what you want,” Sam said and he looked so damn sad. “I can get people praying for Cas.”

            Cas looked from one to the other. “People should not pray for me if it means they won’t pray for Michael.”

            “It’s not a zero sum game, Cas,” Sam said.

            “I’m a hunter, Sammy. You,” Dean waved out at the street, at the buses and the little European cars. At the pretty girls on scooters and the boys on motorcycles. At the people speaking Italian and all the history and painters and shit. “You can fit in a place like this. You do more good in the world charging up Micheal’s batteries than five hundred hunters killing vamps. Your big brain, little brother. Your big smart brain. You’re like some race horse dumped in a family of mules.”

            “You’re my _brother_ ,” Sam said, “and you’re smart. You’re the best hunter in the world.”

_Don’t look so sad, Sammy, don’t look at me like you’re on your knees and I’m going to cut your head off._

            Dean was so damn drunk. “Cas, tomorrow, you gotta take me home.”

            “I will Dean,” Cas promised.

            “You’re my brother,” Sam repeated.

#

            Dean dreamed of Death with his ring and his cane. It was evening and they were talking and then he was taking his duffle from the Impala and carrying it to the door of one of the rooms of a motel. But his key didn’t work and he realized he was at the wrong motel, that he’d gotten turned around. Sammy was at another motel with Death. When he ran back to the Impala there was blood all over the passenger seat. He tried calling Sam but he ended up talking to Bobby who was also somehow John and was so angry at him.

            He woke up hungover with the taste of failure in his mouth and lay on the bed trying to fix the dream, closing his eyes and thinking he wouldn’t have been at the wrong motel because Sam would have been riding with him. He dozed and he was in the Darkness and something was wrong with his gut. He woke up again remembering the smell of hospital antiseptic so strong it was a taste. Some vague memory of being almost conscious but not.

            He gave up and got up. Coffee. Shower.

            Sam came out from his room in t-shirt and sweats and stood looking helpless watching him make coffee. Then Sam disappeared and returned with pills and water. He plunked the pills down on the painfully white and shining expanse of island. “Paracetamol,” he said. “It’s what they call Tylenol.” Why did there have to be sunlight in the morning? Couldn’t it wait until a more civilized time of day? Say, three in the afternoon?

            So many mornings of his life. Coffee and something for a hangover. Always easy to hate himself with a hangover.

            Sam plunked down with his laptop and drank coffee. After an hour or so, Dean was starting to feel like he wouldn’t throw up or die and Sam slid the laptop over to him.

            “I want you to take this with you,” he said.

            “I’m not taking your laptop,” Dean said.

            “You’ll need it. I’ve backed up all my stuff, cleaned off everything you don’t need—”

            “Why don’t I just cut off your dick,” Dean said.

            Sam reared back and then curled a little, protectively. “What the fuck, Dean.”

            “Well, you’re about as attached to your laptop.”

            “It’s already three years old. I’ll get another one,” Sam said. “I want one with a touch interface anyway.” He pointed to an icon. “If you click that it’ll take you to a darknet site called _The Roadhouse_. It’s a hunter’s website online. They’ve cracked down a lot on credit card scams and these days, to get ID you have to get it from hackers. The best ones come from Belarus, Bangalore, and ShenZhen. Some people claim they have good luck with guys from Lagos but I’d stay away from those. I’ve set you up with a bunch to be mailed to the P.O. Box in Lebanon, including a passport.”

            Dean let the words roll over him. It was too early. He didn’t know what a darknet was. He didn’t care about an interface.

            He’d been dead. Again. For five years this time. A Winchester record.

            If he thought about it he’d…he’d…

            He wasn’t going to think about it.

            When Sam expected him to nod, he nodded. When Sam said, “You got it?” he answered, “Basically.”

            “You can always get in touch with me if you need anything,” Sam said. “I can still handle IDs and stuff for you.”

            “Yeah, thanks,” Dean said. “Priests probably shouldn’t handle illegal credit scams and shit.”

            “Not a priest,” Sam said.

            “Okay, don’t baptize me.”

            Dean staggered back to the bedroom to pack his new clothes in his new duffle. Sam was good. Sam was fine. Sam had a life. Sam was a fucking saint. Sam had been the demon blood junkie and brought on the apocalypse (and died for it and done God only knew how much time paying for it) while he’d been the Righteous Man and fucked it all up and become a murderous bastard and a demon.

            By the time he had packed, showered, and shaved, he had his game face back.

            Cas was sitting on the couch and Sam was standing, still drinking coffee. They had been talking about him, he could tell because they both stopped talking when they heard him and were looking expectantly at him. It was as awkward as the morning after bad sex.

            Sammy was going to give him a hug and he didn’t want one because it was more than he could handle right now. “Look, nobody’s got a terminal illness, okay?” he said. “Except maybe your hair, that’s just always gonna be tragic.”

            Sam tried to smile. “Send me an email, and that thing has Skype. We can do video conferences.”

            Dean hiked his eyebrows. “Yeah, right?” He thumped Sam on the shoulder. “Thanks for calling me a cab.” To Cas. “You ready to go?”

            “I’m ready, Dean.” Cas looked at Sam. Sam nodded. Cas reached for his forehead with two fingers—

…

            —and they were in the Bunker.

            Dean let the air out of his lungs. He hadn’t realized how much he had been holding his breath. How heavy the weight of everything had been. Cas stood, waiting.

            “Angel Airlines welcomes you to Kansas,” Dean said.

#

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rule 34—"If it exists, there is porn of it - no exceptions".


	7. Berlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Lucifer has got a new vessel, doesn’t he?” Dean said. Dean and Sam had learned that Lucifer was out of the Cage when Lucifer appeared in their motel room in a new vessel in the middle of the night. More than five years ago, Dean reminded himself. It hadn’t been a good night for Sam.
> 
> Cas tilted his head in that birdlike way. “Yes. The young man lives in Berlin when he is not hosting Lucifer.”
> 
> “Maybe we should talk to Luci.”
> 
> “Dean,” Cas said. “Even if my brother will talk to you, do you think that’s a good idea?”
> 
> “Nothing a hunter does is a good idea,” Dean said.

*   *   *

7

            The next day Cas showed up again. “Hello Dean,” Cas said. He gave Dean a cell phone, one of those super-slim things like Sam had been carrying.

            “You went cell phone shopping?” Dean asked. Five years must have changed a lot of things if Cas was up to speed enough on technology to shop for it.

            “No, Sam bought it for you. He said to tell you he is in Georgetown and to call him if you need anything. His number is in your phone. He also asked me to put this in your wallet without letting you know but I told him that wasn’t a good idea.” Cas reached into the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a stack of twenties.

            Dean took it without thinking and then handed it back to Cas. “Tell Sam I don’t need his money.”

            “He said it was to ‘tide you over’ until your credit cards arrived.”

            Dean had about $45 and he figured that would do until he could find a poker game or hustle a little pool. Things couldn’t have changed that much. “I’m fine,” Dean said.

            “Usually when a Winchester says they are fine, that means things are bad,” Cas pointed out. “Sam said if you wouldn’t take the money I should just leave it.” Cas put it on one of the library tables.

            “Tell Sam I’m not going to take it.”

            “You can call him and tell him yourself.”

            “This isn’t a phone, it’s a postcard,” Dean said. “I don’t know how to make a call on a postcard.”

            “Sam sent you some possible hunts.”

            Dean looked at the phone. It really wasn’t that complicated. It was some sort of Apple gadget. (Figured.) He played with it for a minute, figured out how to call Sam’s number. When Sam picked up he said, “Back the fuck off.”

            Sam chuckled. “Hey, Dean.”

            “Cas is here. He says you’re in Georgetown. Another angel dog and pony show?”

            “No,” Sam said. “You sound like you’ve had a few to drink.”

            “Yeah. Got a problem?”

            “It’s eleven in the morning where you are.”

            “I’m on Rome time.” He tried to figure out what time it was on Rome time. Was it seven hours earlier or seven hours later? Four in the morning? Six in the evening?

            “So you’re eating dinner?” Sam said.

            “Since when have you ever given a rat’s ass about eating?” Dean snarled.

            “Oooo-kay,” Sam said. Sniping at Sam about food was a low blow, what with Sam’s on again, off again issues with eating. He knew it. But if Sam was going to start asking about alcohol, he figured he could swing back.

            “Stop sending me money and phones and hunts and shit,” Dean said. “I’m not brain damaged.”

            “I promise I won’t send you any more phones,” Sam said. Asshole.

            “Bite me,” Dean said. “I’m not spending the money.”

            “What if you run out of whiskey?”

            “Fuck you.” Dean cut the call without saying good bye and glared at Cas.

 #

            He did a salt and burn six hours away, using cash for a motel room since he didn’t have credit cards yet. Cas partnered with him. “Don’t you have to fight the Darkness?” he asked. The hotel room had no theme unless you counted mildew.

            “God wants you to fight the Darkness so if I partner with you, I am also fighting,” Cas said. “Sam asked me to watch over you.”

            “Well, we all have to do what Saint Samantha asks, don’t we,” Dean said.

            “Sam is worried about you,” Cas said.

            “Sam’s like Gandhi, he worries about stepping on insects.”

            “Gandhi was not a Jain,” Cas said. “He did not worry about insects. Nor, as far as I can tell, does Sam.”

            “I can do a salt and burn on my own,” Dean said.

            There was a flutter and Cas was gone. Then Dean was alone in the motel room. He’d gotten a double and the moment Cas left the room felt empty. Really empty. The television didn’t help.

#

            “Cas,” Dean said making coffee in Bunker, knowing Cas was standing about a foot and a half behind him. (Too close but better, right?) “How did the archangels fight the Darkness? How are they fighting it now?”

            “Michael is doing most of the fighting,” Cas said. “Lucifer won’t fight.”

            “How do the angels fight?” Dean asked. He tried to think of what they could do. Take their angel swords and stick them in the fog? Swirl them around?

            “We push our grace towards Michael and he channels it towards the Darkness,” Cas said. “He is the weapon.”

            “Lucifer has got a new vessel, doesn’t he?” Dean said. Dean and Sam had learned that Lucifer was out of the Cage when Lucifer appeared in their motel room in a new vessel in the middle of the night. More than five years ago, Dean reminded himself. It hadn’t been a good night for Sam.

            Cas tilted his head in that birdlike way. “Yes. The young man lives in Berlin when he is not hosting Lucifer.”

            “Maybe we should talk to Luci.”

            “Dean,” Cas said. “Even if my brother will talk to you, do you think that’s a good idea?”

            “Nothing a hunter does is a good idea,” Dean said.

            What do you take to interview Lucifer? Maybe he’d stop by Rome and see Sam, assuming Sam was finished with whatever the hell he’d been doing in Georgetown. On the other hand, better Sam not know about this. Sam didn’t need reminders of Luci.

            Castiel touched his forehead, fuck he hated—

…

            —that. It was evening. He didn’t know what he expected Berlin to be like, probably those black and white World War II documentaries on the History Channel. He didn’t expect a twenty story apartment complex that looked like it was built in the 60’s. It was huge and ugly, balcony upon square crowded balcony. It was difficult to see in the evening light but on the lower balconies there were bicycles and laundry thrown over railings to dry and half dead plants. In a funny way it felt to him like the city equivalent of the trailer park where they’d done the salt and burn. “This used to be East Berlin,” Cas said. It felt communist to Dean.

            “What’s this place?” Dean waved at the apartment building.

            “This is where Ilya lives with his brother,” Cas said.

            “Ilya?”

            “The boy. The vessel.” There were double glass doors that led to a utilitarian lobby with rows of mailboxes. The elevator had heavy red doors. “He is on the 18th floor,” Cas said.

            “You’d think Lucifer’s vessel would live better,” Dean said.

            “Sam didn’t,” Cas said.

            No, Sam had lived worse. Homeless. But Sam hadn’t said yes. What was the benefit of saying yes if you had to live like this?

            The elevator lurched upward. The fluorescent light made Cas’ skin look green. When the doors opened there was a big 18 painted on the wall opposite. Good for coming home drunk. The walls were concrete block, the floor was cement. At least motels tried to be cheerful.

            They stopped in front of 1806 and Dean knocked. The guy who pulled the door open was not the skinny blond that had appeared once in a motel room that Dean was sharing with Sam, not the vessel.

            “Is Ilya here?” Dean asked.

            The man looked at him, eyes narrowed. “No English,” he said. He was stocky and blue-eyed. Graceful and muscled. A tough.

            “ _Ilya tut_?” Cas asked.

            “ _Chomu_?” the man asked and Dean didn’t need to be a genius to hear ‘What’s it to you?’ in that.

            Another voice inside called out, “ _Khto tam? Ne budʹ mudakom. Nekhay yikh._ ”

            There was a momentary bit of bickering and then a younger man looked under the other’s arm and said something. “ _Ihnoruvaty moho brata_.”

            Cas said, “He said to ignore his brother.”

            Dean said, “Tell him I say that a lot, too.”

            Cas said something back and the boy grinned. He had hair so blond it was almost white and pale ice blue eyes but what made Dean momentarily unable to breath was the way they slanted. Tartar eyes, fox-like. So different in color but so like Sam’s. Nothing else about this boy who was short and slight was anything like Sam.

            “Tell him my brother is Sam Winchester,” Dean said.

            The older man, the older brother, Dean was pretty sure, caught the name and made to slam the door, but the younger brother grabbed it and said something sharp. Then something to Cas.

            Cas nodded and then said to Dean, “He was asking me if I was the one who came with Sam.”

            “Sam came here?”

            “Yes, to meet Ilya, talk to him.”

            Of course Sam came here.

            The older man reluctantly opened the door.

            The apartment was furnished like two guys lived there. A shabby sofa, a chair, a coffee table with beer bottles and game controllers. There was a flat screen TV. A kitchen with dishes in the sink. The older brother’s name was Danya. He followed them in keeping himself between them and the door, just ever so slightly threatening. When he moved, he flowed. Dean introduced himself and was offered the chair.

            Ilya was barefoot and was wearing tight black pants but was planning on getting ready to go out. He had a pale skinny chest. He liked to go to clubs. Berlin had great clubs, did Dean want to go? The boy was beautiful in a sweet feral kind of way.

            It was too bad Sam was not with them. It had been good to meet Sam who was excellent for an old guy. He was happy to explain why he had said yes to Lucifer. He didn’t believe in God and angels when Lucifer asked him. He was Ukrainian. An atheist. His mother was a believer but she died in a fire when he was six months old. His father was an alcoholic and Danya practically raised him.

            Danya flashed Dean a look that said, ‘Don’t fuck with my kid.’ Dean and Danya understood each other. _We are the same breed_ , Dean thought.

            When Lucifer asked him, Ilya said yes because he didn’t know any better and in some ways he regretted it because when Lucifer wanted him, afterwards was bad, but Lucifer took care of them, made sure they didn’t have to worry. They had this apartment and things were so much easier now. He was going to university and so was Danya. A look flashed across those slanted eyes that made Dean think there was a bigger cost than Ilya was admitting.

            Danya growled something.

            Cas translated, “Why are we here?”

            “I need to talk to Lucifer,” Dean said.

            “Out,” Danya said in English—he had clearly understood ‘Lucifer.’ He reached for Dean’s collar, like a bouncer, ready to throw him out. Dean went under him but Danya was fast, too. Too fast, hunter fast, grabbing for Dean who was reaching for his gun and it was all about to get lethally nasty when Cas was between them.

            “ _Chomu_?” Ilya asked making everyone go still. _Why?_ Old voice. Old eyes.

            “To try to stop the Darkness,” Dean said. “Lucifer was there when they stopped before. He knows how they did it.”

            “ _Nee!_ ” Danya said when Cas translated.

            Dean watched it play out. Was this what he and Sam looked like? Ilya, tired, patient, barefoot and fragile; sitting cross-legged on the ratty couch. Danya, furious, insistent, protective; looming above his younger brother. Already beaten and just too stubborn to admit it? Probably.

            What kind of guy was he to do this to someone’s little brother?

            Oh God, he missed Sam right now. It was like physical pain. He wanted to see him, to hold Sam’s face in his hands and look in his eyes. To see if Sam was really all right. (Sam hadn’t been all right in a long, long time. Neither of them had.)

            “Okay,” Ilya said to Dean.

            Danya stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

            Ilya looked at the door. Dean felt his own breath, in and out. The air moving in the room. The night coming down to darkness in Berlin and out the window, the streets lined with street lights and the headlights and taillights of cars. Ilya gave a little shudder, the kind that made people say something like ‘a goose walked over my grave,’ and then smiled like it was all nothing, a brave smile. “ _YA postarayusya, shchob vyklykaty do nʹoho_.”

            “He said he’ll try to call,” Cas said quietly.

            Ilya dropped his head as if praying and his lips moved.

            His eyes opened and he studied the coffee table. It was just Ilya, Dean knew. They all waited to see if the archangel cared. Dean closed his eyes and thought, ‘Lucifer, it’s Dean Winchester. I never thought I’d want to talk to you but here we are. You gonna show?’

            Dean opened his eyes. Nothing. Grubby apartment.

            Dean wondered what the beer was like in Berlin. Since he was here. German beer and all.

            Then Lucifer was here and Ilya was… gone.

#


	8. Interviewing Lucifer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Berlin bars had good beer. This one had loud music, some techno-crap.
> 
> “I want to go visit Sam,” Dean said, loudly, enunciating carefully. It was something like two in the morning. The bar stools in this particular Berlin bar were the highest bar stools Dean had ever sat on. They were about four feet off the ground. It had been easy enough to get on but now it made a guy think twice if he had to piss.
> 
> “We can go visit Sam,” Cas shouted over the music.
> 
> “No, we can’t,” Dean yelled. “It’s the middle of the night. Sam doesn’t sleep well and he doesn’t need us showing up at 2:00am.” He was rather drunk and he was not entirely sure how he was going to get off of a bar stool that was four feet tall. The bartender had explained to Cas that the height of the barstools were all about perspective. A philosophical statement. The bar was call Wittgenstein. He was a philosopher. This was all somehow related.

*   *   *

8

            It was like when Lucifer wore Sam. It was just a different person. Lucifer looked up and even though he was a skinny, slight, blond kid with pale eyes sitting on the couch, barefoot, it was all not the same. The person on the couch was frightening. The light in the room felt colder.

            “Castiel,” he said. “How are you?”

            “Brother,” Cas said. “Better than the last time I saw you.”

            As far as Dean knew, the last time Castiel saw Lucifer was at Stull Cemetery and Lucifer had exploded him into tiny gobbets of flesh.

            “How does it feel to be Dad’s new favorite, hmm?” Lucifer asked.

            “I don’t think I am.”

            “I don’t know, our half brother only got one resurrection, how many have you gotten?” Lucifer stood up and stretched like a cat, back arching. “Dad’s favorite and fallen. I can tell you that’s not always a comfortable position.”

            Cas didn’t rise to the bait.

            Lucifer swung his attention to Dean. “Hello, Dean. How is Sam?”

            “None of your business.” Dean knew he had to keep his temper.

            “I should drop by again, see how things are at the Vatican,” Lucifer said. “I miss Sam so much. Little Ilya is a good vessel, born and bred, but he’s no Sam. Azazel was right. Sam was the best.”

            “About the Darkness,” Dean said.

            “Doesn’t seem so bad to me,” Lucifer said.

            “Right,” Dean said. “Just because it will eventually destroy the Earth, Heaven and Hell.”

            “Earth first. Cleansing it of all of you, even better than the Apocalypse, which I guess would distress Father dearest, if there was some sign he cared.” He stared out the window for a moment as if lost in thought then smiled politely at Dean. “Did Michael send you?” Lucifer asked. “He won’t even talk to poor Danya.” He wandered into the kitchen and Dean heard the sound of a refrigerator opening. “Would you like something to drink? Ilya’s not much of a beer drinker I’m afraid. How about some ecstasy? That’s really his drug of choice. Although the serotonin crash afterward hits him very hard. All my vessels are prone to depression it seems.”

            “You know, it’s quite a coincidence,” Dean said, raising his voice to be heard in the kitchen.

            Lucifer came back and leaned one shoulder against the wall, eyebrow raised.

            “That it’s called the Darkness and ‘Lucifer’ means ‘Light Bringer’.”

            Something flashed across Lucifer’s face. Lucifer didn’t like that although he hid it quickly. “I’m also called the Prince of Darkness.”

            “That’s later,” Dean said. “Sam’s not the only one who can do research. How did you fight the Darkness the first time?”

            “I didn’t fight the Darkness,” Lucifer said, sounding bitter. “My Father did.”

            “God and the four archangels did,” Dean said. “That’s what Death said.”

            “Death wasn’t at the battle,” Lucifer said. “I didn’t fight. I’m not lying to you, Dean. I was an _instrument_ ,” he said, his lip curling. “Like you and Sam.”

            “You’re nothing like me and Sam,” Dean said.

            But Lucifer had already left. A brief flash of bright white light in Ilya’s eyes, no smoking out like a demon, no blinding light. Ilya gasped and stood there, blinking too fast. His mouth opened slightly. He made a funny clicking noise in the back of his throat. Partial seizure, Dean thought, although he didn’t know how he knew that. The boy swayed slightly and Dean was on his feet to grab him and ease the him to the couch. Ilya grabbed his forehead and folded over. He let go just to scrabble blindly at a cell phone on the end table but his movements were uncoordinated, spastic.

            Dean picked it up.

            “Danya,” Ilya murmured.

            Dean found the contact and called. Danya shoved the door open, he’d obviously been waiting outside and he went to his knees in front of his brother, gentle, whispering, hands on his shoulders. Ilya leaned into his chest.

            Cas leaned forward and put his fingers against Ilya’s forehead and the young man slumped against his brother in sleep.

            Danya glanced up at Dean and jerked his head for the door then looked back at Ilya, dismissing Dean and Cas as if they weren’t even there.

            The concrete hallway was even worse the second time around. Harsh lights, echoing sound. “If you’re going to be Satan’s tool, you should at least get a penthouse,” Dean snapped.

            “Ilya must not care,” Cas said. “Like Sam.”

            “He’s as much like Sam as I’m like Benedict Cucumberbitch.”

            Cas chose to remain silent.

            The elevator creaked and stopped on the fifteenth floor. A couple got on, clearly on their way out to party. Both were wearing a lot of eyeliner. They glanced at Cas in his trench coat and smiled. The elevator stopped at twelve and a middle-eastern looking man in leather chaps got on. He made serious eye contact with Dean. It wasn’t the first time some guy had made serious eye contact with Dean but tonight he was too off balance to deal gracefully with it. He snarled. The guy in leather dropped his eyes to his heavy black boots. So it went to the ground floor.

            Outside Dean said, “Where can we get a drink?”

            “In Berlin or in the Bunker or somewhere else?” Cas asked.

            “Let’s get wasted in Berlin,” Dean said. “Might as well since I never plan to come back here again as long as I live.”

#

            Berlin bars had good beer. This one had loud music, some techno-crap.

            “I want to go visit Sam,” Dean said, loudly, enunciating carefully. It was something like two in the morning. The bar stools in this particular Berlin bar were the highest bar stools Dean had ever sat on. They were about four feet off the ground. It had been easy enough to get on but now it made a guy think twice if he had to piss.

            “We can go visit Sam,” Cas shouted over the music.

            “No, we can’t,” Dean yelled. “It’s the middle of the night. Sam doesn’t sleep well and he doesn’t need us showing up at 2:00am.” He was rather drunk and he was not entirely sure how he was going to get off of a bar stool that was four feet tall. The bartender had explained to Cas that the height of the barstools were all about perspective. A philosophical statement. The bar was call Wittgenstein. He was a philosopher. This was all somehow related.

            “It’s not the middle of the night where Sam is,” Cas said. Cas had his original beer in front of him. “He’s in Georgetown. It’s eight in the morning there.”

            Dean leaned on the bar. It was a zinc bar. That probably meant something, too. The bar was nice and dark. Hell, the beer probably meant something philosophical. “Luci said he was in Rome.”

            “My brother is wrong. He thinks he’s in Rome but he doesn’t know where he is because of the Enochian carved in his ribs.”

            “Oh,” Dean yelled. “Good. Lets go check on him.”

            “We need to pay for our beer.”

            “’Kay,” Dean said. “Wait. I only have American dollars.”

            “Do you have a credit card?”

            “Fuck. They’re all expired,” Dean said. “The new ones haven’t come yet. Every country should have the same money. Having all these different kinds of money is really confusing. How much is a Euro worth, anyway.”

            Cas was not actually there anymore. Which meant Dean was going to have to figure out how to get out of this bar without getting arrested because somehow getting arrested in Germany seemed like a really bad idea. Especially if most of your understanding of Germany came from documentaries on the History Channel. Although the History Channel seemed much more interested in Bigfoot than history. Or at least it had been five years ago, who knew what the History Channel was showing these days. He drained the last of his beer and thought about how he was going to get off of this very high barstool that was making a philosophical statement (don’t get drunk on a barstool that’s four feet high?)

            Cas was back and signaling the bartender. Cas acted like someone who had spent some serious time in bars. Come to think of it, given the amount of time Cas had spent with him, Cas had spent some serious time in bars. Cas had a credit card.

            “You have a credit card?” Dean asked.

            “It’s Sam’s. He’s making coffee.”

            “I’m not taking any more of Sam’s money,” Dean said.

            But first he had to get off of the barstool—

…

            —in Georgetown.

            “Hi Sam,” he said, staggering since he had been sitting and was now standing without much transition. Cas steadied him. “I fucking hate travelling by angel.” His ears were ringing a little. Georgetown was very quiet.

            “Hi Dean,” Sam said. “Hi again, Cas.” Sam’s hair was damp like he’d just gotten out of the shower. His running shoes were by the door. He’d probably gone for a run. “You smell like a bar.”

            “It’s two in the morning in Berlin,” Dean slurred. “A good time to be in a bar. What do you know about Wittenschter? Wittgenschter. Philosophy?”

            “What were you doing in Berlin?” Sam asked, frowning.

            “Drinking. In a bar that was making a philosophical statement by having four foot high barstools.”

            “What kind of statement was it making?”

            “I don’t know, but the beer was good. What is this place?” It was a studio apartment kind of room with a double bed and kitchenette. Spare, with navy blue for curtains and bed spread and carpet and a cross hanging on the wall. No television. Not like a motel.

            “It’s a guest apartment at off campus housing,” Sam said. “You want a shower?”

            Dean looked at his brother. His tall, clean-smelling, slightly older than he expected brother. “No, I just wanted to drop by. Check up on you.” He smiled. “You look good, Sammy.”

            “Thanks?” Sam said, forehead wrinkling. “Uh, Cas? Is he about to do something stupid?”

            “No,” Cas said. “We have already done something stupid. We went to visit Ilya and Danya Hrytsenko and talked to Lucifer.”

            “Fuck, Cas,” Dean said.

Sam went white and Dean could watch him kind of go away. Disassociate. Sam’s eyes were focused on something else and his jaw was a little unhinged. Dean stood swaying, thinking fuck, fuck, fuck, because he was drunk and Cas shouldn’t have said that. “Come on,” Dean said. “Look at me.”

            Sam focused on Dean.

            “Nothing bad happened,” Dean said. He’d told Cas not to tell Sam.

            “Coffee’s made,” Sam said, his voice gritty. “Cas, do you want any?”

            “No, thank you, Sam.”

            Sam turned and poured coffee for Dean and himself. He handed Dean a mug. His hand was shaking slightly. Dean took it while pretending not to notice. “How were Ilya and Danya?” Sam asked like he was asking about the neighbors or something.

            Cas said, “Ilya was sorry you had not come with us. Danya seemed hostile.”

            Sam took his coffee and sat down on the bed. “Why?”

            “I believe he is protective.”

            Sam was looking at Dean.

            “He means why did we go, Cas. Because Lucifer was there the first time the Darkness was defeated. So he knows how they did it,” Dean said. “It’s a case. Like any other case. You know, you interview the witnesses.”

            Sam laughed. A shaky, not nice laugh. “The Morningstar as a witness.”

            “Yes,” Dean said.

            “So, how was … the witness?” Sam asked.

            Dean sat down at the tiny kitchen chair. If this was the way colleges treated guests he was surprised they got any. Even the coffee tasted cheap. “He was a dick,” he said. “Insulting. I asked him how they defeated the Darkness.” Sam was looking at him but Dean wasn’t sure he was really hearing. Dean waited. After a beat, Sam nodded to go on but it might have been because he realized Dean had stopped talking.

            “I pointed out that it was called the Darkness and he was the Light Bringer. He said he didn’t fight the Darkness, that he was an instrument, like you and me.” Dean hadn’t paid much attention to that comment. Just noise, like Castiel being God’s favorite and fallen. But now it snagged in Dean’s head. “Then he left.”

            Sam rubbed his thumb in his palm.

            Dean glared at Cas who looked impassive.

            “He can’t find you,” Dean said. “He thought you were in Rome.”

            Sam nodded jerkily.

            “When are you going back?”

            Sam looked at him, opened his mouth, shut it. Frowned. Dropped his head. A whole crapload of Sam reactions. He probably could have figured them out if he’d been sober.

            Cas said, “Sam isn’t going back.”

            “You’re doing the angel thing here?” Dean said.

            “I quit,” Sam said.

            “Jesus, Sam! When were you going to tell me!” Dean snapped and Sam startled like he’d heard a gunshot.

            “Don’t blaspheme,” Sam and Cas said at almost the same time. Cas smiled at Sam and Sam smiled weakly back.

“I quit a couple of days after you came back,” Sam said, looking at his thumb digging into his palm. Dean thought back to Rome and Sam’s phone ringing and ringing until he shut it off. Of course. They were calling because their pet angel handler was leaving and they were panicking.

Dean couldn’t stand it anymore, he crossed to Sam in two long strides and grabbed his wrist. “Are you seeing him?” he growled.

            Sam was startled. “Lucifer? No! No. Why?” He looked into his scared palm and gave a little embarrassed laugh. He pulled his wrist from Dean and dropped his hands into his lap. “Sorry,” he said. “Nervous habit.”

            “Why didn’t you tell me?” Dean snapped again.

            Sam shrugged, still looking at his hands. “I didn’t even think about it. I just assumed, I mean, you were back. I thought… and then you didn’t want me to and I mean, I understood because I knew you were pissed because I didn’t try to bring you back and I figured it was just the last straw.”

            “What a clusterfuck,” Dean said. He sat down on the bed next to Sam and cradled his head in one hand. “I’ve had too much to drink for this.”

            He felt someone gently try to take his coffee mug and looked up to see Cas carefully trying to un-pry his fingers. “You should sleep,” Cas said. “I will take Sam to get some breakfast. Then you and Sam will talk when you wake up. You can say angry things at him and he can not say anything until you have both figured it out like you usually do.”

            Is that what we usually do? Dean thought. That sounded pretty fucked up. But Sam snorted in a way that he did when Cas said something inadvertently funny. “Go to sleep,” Sam said. “Cas is right.”

            “You’re freaked out,” Dean said, looking at his brother. Who _was_ freaked.

            “I’m always freaked out,” Sam said. “I’ll be freaked out when you wake up. I’ll freak out at Cas, okay?”

            “Right,” Dean said. Cas knelt and took his foot as if he was going to pull off his boot. “Hey, hey, hey!” Dean said and toed off his boots. He allowed himself to flop back. The bed smelled like Sam. He closed his eyes and things swam.

            “On the pillow, Dean,” Sam said.

            He made grumbling noises but squirmed until he lay the right way on the bed. Then the door opened and shut and he slept.

#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bar described is based on a bar in Berlin from before the Wall came down, back in the late sixties. I was never there but someone described the super tall bar stools to me. I don't know if the bar is still there (I doubt it.)


	9. Idolized Masculine Values

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They kicked back and watched movies Dean had missed in the last five years on Sam’s new fancy laptop. Sam could either use a mouse or touch the screen to do things.
> 
> Bourne 5 rocked, as did Sausage Party. (Just the name alone! Animated! Seth Rogan! It was hysterical!) They were trying to decide whether to watch something called Live By Night which Sam liked but wasn’t sure that Dean would like, or just go with Star Trek 3 to be followed by Star Trek 4 when Cas showed up.
> 
> “Hello Dean, Hello Sam.”
> 
> They were sitting side by side on the bed with the laptop on Dean’s lap (Sam had already seen the movies, after all). “Cas! Have you seen Sausage Party?”
> 
> “I have not,” Cas said. “I see you have ‘figured things out’.” He didn’t actually make air quotes. Thank God for small favors.
> 
> “Yep,” said Dean as Sam said, “Ah, no.”
> 
> They looked at each other and Sam said, “I mean, yeah.”
> 
> “Not exactly,” Dean said.
> 
> Cas looked hard at them. Dean wasn’t sure why he was considered the righteous one, Cas could do righteous like nobody’s business. It was the eyes.

*   *   *

9

            He woke up to find Sam at the table, hunched over his laptop, and no sign of Cas. Without looking up Sam said, “Brought you lunch. You’ll want to nuke the homefries.”

            Next to the bed was ibuprofen and water. He’d woken up to just this in more motels than he could remember. “Like old times,” Dean grated out.

            Sam smiled at the screen. “Get a shower.” He finally looked at Dean. “Coffee will be ready when you’re done.”

            It was and there was a t-shirt and a clean pair of sweatpants only a little too long. And some sort of sandwich. The room smelled of coffee.

            “Did Cas get you to eat?” Dean asked.

            “Not hungry,” Sam said. “Been thinking about your witness interview. Any idea what it meant?”

            Dean had planned to talk about what Sam planned on doing and this whole business of Sam not being a Cub Scout version of a priest anymore. (Except hadn’t he heard that once you were a priest you were always a priest, you were just not-practicing or some weird thing?) He could force it but he was un-caffeinated and hungry. “Probably bullshit. Everything indicates that God and the archangels and a host of angels went all ballistic on the Darkness.”

            “So where’s God now?” Sam asked.

            “Running a grocery produce department,” Dean said. “How would I know, you talk to the guy.”

            Sam shook his head. “Not really. I actually heard him once. After that I just got visions. Sometimes from him, sometimes from—” Sam stopped talking and went back to his laptop.

            “From who,” Dean said. Sam shook his head. “Sam,” Dean insisted, “from who? From Lucifer? You still see Lucifer?”

            “No,” Sam said. “Just … images. Visions. You know. Like red. Chains and stuff. They’re rare. I don’t know if they’re from, um, him, or not. But about what he said, that he was an instrument, like you and me. You were the Michael Sword. What if he was God’s weapon?”

            “Lucifer?” Dean said.

            Sam swiveled back to meet his eyes. “Yeah. He was God’s favorite. Like you said, the Light Bringer. Angels can be weirdly literal.”

            “You mean that he was God’s vessel?” Dean asked.

            Sam shrugged. “Obviously, not exactly, but something. He won’t fight. We can pick that up from the angel recordings. There are only two recordings of him.”

            “So Luci’s shy. Never would have guessed.”

            “Not so much shy. More like exclusive. One of them he’s taunting Michael,” Sam said.

            “Taunting Michael?”

            “Yeah, saying how he isn’t going to help save people and Michael can’t do it on his own even with the help of an army of angels. Throwing angelic insults from the sound of it. I can understand him better than I can understand Michael but I can only get the gist of it.”

            “Great,” Dean said. “Angelic yo’ mama jokes. What’s the other?”

            “He begs his father to come home,” Sam said. “It’s one of our two recordings of angel song. Cas did the other as a favor, a battle song. They’re beautiful in a horrific kind of way.” Sam’s fingers shivered over the keys of the laptop, not typing but rather in a nerve-damaged, meaningless kind of motion. Like Parkinson’s or something. He was clearly unaware of it. “Terrible, maybe,” he said to no one in particular, “in the way it used to mean. ‘Able to inspire terror’.”

            He looked like he was about to say something else. His fingers kept doing that weird palsied almost typing thing across the keyboard. After almost a minute Dean decided he wasn’t going to say anything else.

            “Sam,” Dean said.

            “Right,” Sam said. He rubbed his nose. “Going to take a pill.” He dug in his duffle and pulled out a prescription bottle, tossed three capsules and chased them with coffee.

            “What the hell is that?” Dean said.

            “Gabapentin. Stuff for freak outs. Non habit-forming. Only problem is it takes half an hour to forty-five minutes to kick in and it gives me a weird headache like a wire right above my eyebrows so I try not take them. Want some?”

            “I’m not freaking out, dude.”

            “Right, just coming off a huge drunk, but back to the case. What if he is the Light Bringer, God’s weapon against the Darkness?” Sam said. He pulled out the ibuprofen bottle and knocked two of those back. “For the headache the freak out pills will give me,” he said.

            “Eat something,” Dean said. “Or you’ll make yourself sick on just coffee and pills.” Sam nodded and dug out a protein bar. “Okay, say he is,” Dean said. “He is going to let the Darkness destroy Earth.”

            Sam nodded. “Because he hates humans.”

            “Would he let it destroy heaven?”

            Sam thought a moment. “I don’t think so. I get the feeling he’s pretty nostalgic about Heaven. We should ask Cas.”

            “So if we could get the Darkness to attack Heaven, then he might decide he has to attack the Darkness,” Dean said.

            “But if he’s just the instrument, doesn’t he need God?”

            “Maybe like us, he has to give his consent,” Dean said.

            Sam thought for a long moment. “That’s a couple of big if’s.”

            “Worth checking out,” Dean said. He tried to think of a way to get the Darkness into Heaven. The only thing he knew that had any information on the Darkness was _The Book of the Damned_.

            They kicked back and watched movies Dean had missed in the last five years on Sam’s new fancy laptop. Sam could either use a mouse or touch the screen to do things.

            _Bourne 5_ rocked, as did _Sausage Party_. (Just the name alone! Animated! Seth Rogan! It was hysterical!) They were trying to decide whether to watch something called _Live By Night_ which Sam liked but wasn’t sure that Dean would like, or just go with _Star Trek 3_ to be followed by _Star Trek 4_ when Cas showed up.

            “Hello Dean, Hello Sam.”

            They were sitting side by side on the bed with the laptop on Dean’s lap (Sam had already seen the movies, after all). “Cas! Have you seen _Sausage Party_?”

            “I have not,” Cas said. “I see you have ‘figured things out’.” He didn’t actually make air quotes. Thank God for small favors.

            “Yep,” said Dean as Sam said, “Ah, no.”

            They looked at each other and Sam said, “I mean, yeah.”

            “Not exactly,” Dean said.

            Cas looked hard at them. Dean wasn’t sure why he was considered the righteous one, Cas could do righteous like nobody’s business. It was the eyes.

            “We were working out some things about the case,” Dean said.

            “But you have not discussed your situation,” Cas said.

            “It’s not exactly a situation,” Dean said. Situation sounded like someone was pregnant. “Why didn’t you tell me that Sam had quit his priest thing?” He turned to Sam. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d quit?”

            Sam opened his mouth but Cas spoke first.

            “I didn’t tell you because in the five years you were dead I’ve come to learn that Sam understands a great deal about you,” Cas said. “He’s explained to me about your love of classic cars and classic music from your father’s era. He’s taught me about socio-economic class and your allegiance with a nearly-forgotten blue collar ethic that idolized masculine values of hard work, white middle-class morals and fighting for the good of others. He’s explained to me that both of you were taught that certain ways of expressing your feelings were signs of weakness or a manipulation of others and that there’s a code of masculinity that you in particular adhere to. He’s said that you have many contradictory ideas and that that’s common in Americans. I can’t always understand the signals of human interactions very well and of the relationship between you and Sam in particular. I’ve heard people describe how you and Sam can appear to speak to each other without words. But I’ve also noted that Sam can sometimes misunderstand you, for example when his own feelings of low self worth are engaged. I did not know if in this particular Sam had understood signals I had not or if Sam had incorrectly assumed, as he often does, that he was valueless and therefore you would discard him. I hoped you both would work it out on your own. But since you haven’t I’ll ask you directly. Dean, do you want Sam to come back to the Bunker with you as he would prefer to do or would you prefer that he find some other place to stay?”

            Dean said, “Whoa.”

            Sam was red to the tips of his ears.

            “Could you repeat that?” Dean said.

            Cas took a breath, “I didn’t tell you because in the five years you were dead I’ve come to learn that—”

            “Never mind,” Dean said. “You thought I didn’t want you in the Bunker?” he said to Sam.

            “You said you didn’t want me to come back,” Sam said. Hard to believe that this was the man who had stalked him across country when he was a demon.

            “I thought you were happy!”

            “Actually,” Cas said, “Dean never said he didn’t want you to go back with him, he just talked as if it were assumed you weren’t going back with him.”

            “That,” Dean said.

            “Although you never inquired what Sam wanted,” Cas said.

            “Exactly,” Sam said.

            “What, now you’re a freaking marriage counselor?” Dean said. Then to Sam, “I figured you were done. You haven’t been back to the Bunker in how long?”

            “Since you DIED, Dean! I took your body back for the second and what I thought was the final time! Cleaned it up and wrapped it in cotton and linen and burned it.” Sam got up. “I’ve been back a couple of times to get books. I just can’t stay there. Couldn’t, I mean.”

            “How was I supposed to know that!” Dean yelled.

            “I don’t know. I didn’t know you wanted to. All I knew was that you were the center and you were gone and Cas and I…” He waved his hand like that completed his sentence and his jaw jumped.

            “I believe Sam is trying to say we missed you,” Cas said. “Sam had to teach me about grief. It’s different for humans than it is for angels. When angels die they’re gone. We mourn for millennia. But eventually we’ll be nothing and there’s a kind of solace in that—there’s no afterlife for us. Knowing that you were in heaven and I wouldn’t be able to visit you was a different kind of grief. I understood for the first time how hard it is for humans to stay alive when someone they love dies.”

            Sam reached out and put his hand on Cas’ arm. “I wasn’t going to leave you alone yet, Cas.”

            “I’m grateful,” Cas said.

            Dean was frozen. This was everything he hated. He shook himself. “Well if you’ve made your speeches and given me my statuette, I’d like a burger and a beer.”

            “Okay,” Sam said quietly. “It’s a college town. Burger and beer is easy.” Obviously not enough emotions had been spilled all over the floor because Sam was still not looking at him. Fuck it all, he couldn’t do this. Sam taking pills because he was thinking about the Cage and now finding out that for the last five years, Sam and Cas had been having a frigging nightly wake for him, He. Just. Had. To. Move.

            Cas held his hand out. “Dean.”

            “What!” he barked.

            “The question.”

            “What question?” he asked, genuinely confused.

            Sam was standing at the door, not looking back.

            Cas said patiently, “Do you want Sam to come back to the Bunker with you as he would prefer to do or would you prefer that he find some other place to stay?”

            Fuck. “Sammy,” Dean said. “I want you back at the Bunker. But if the Bunker is, like, bad memory central, then we can do whatever. Find another place, go back on the road. Just say the word, man.”

            “Anywhere is fine, Dean, as long as you’re in it.”

            Okay. Too much. “I haven’t had a decent burger in five years, three months, something days hours minutes. Can we get this show on the road?” Cas started to say that they had burgers on the road but Dean ignored him.

#


	10. Backfire from The Book of the Damned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re on speaker, Crowley,” Sam said.
> 
> “It’s Dean,” Dean said. “How’s your mother?”
> 
> “Dean Winchester. As I live and breathe. Or actually, don’t. Do you? Are you living and breathing?”
> 
> “Afraid so.”
> 
> “And you sprung your brother from the convent. Pity. He did look so nice in the naughty nun outfit.”
> 
> Dean knew he was supposed to hate Crowley and he did, he really did, but the guy was funny. Sam, on the other hand, had the look that said he had no trouble remembering he hated Crowley and did not find him at all funny. “Any idea where Rowena might be?” Sam asked.

*  *  *  


10

Sam was kind of hovering at Dean’s bedroom door, like he was waiting for permission to come in. Since they’d been back, Sam ghosted around the Bunker, leaving no sign that he lived there; washing out his coffee cup rather than leaving it until one of them did dishes; cleaning up any research in the library rather than leaving it spread all over, knocking before entering. He acted like a guest. It was driving Dean nuts.

            “What’s with the just standing there?” Dean said. “It’s like the room is some kind of devil’s trap and you were afraid to cross the line.”

            Sam was all frowny-confused. “What are you talking about?”

            “Like you’re afraid to come into my room without asking.”

            “It’s called polite,” Sam said.

            “Since when have we ever been polite to each other?”

            Sam looked exasperated. “Next time I’ll fart.”

            “God, there’s something between acting like Miss Manners and the nuclear option,” Dean said. “Just walk in the fucking room already. He patted the bed. “Bring your laptop. We can watch _Star Trek 4_.”

            Sam came in and sat down. “The even numbered ones aren’t as good. You had an idea.”

            Dean smirked. “I’ve got lots of ideas.”

            “Don’t hurt yourself,” Sam said. “About getting the Darkness to attack heaven.”

            “Yeah,” Dean said. “But that needs beer.”

            “If you didn’t keep coming back to life you wouldn’t have a liver.”

            “Sammy, if I didn’t keep coming back to life I wouldn’t need a liver.”

Sam shrugged, conceding.

            They sat at a library table, Dean with his feet up and Sam leaning back with a beer in his hand. They kicked around what they knew about the Darkness. That it was older than everything except God and some angels and Death. That the Mark of Cain had been a lock and key for it. That the angels could kind of push against it.

            “The angels aren’t going to push it into heaven,” Sam said.

            “No,” Dean said. “You remember how it wouldn’t go inside some buildings and it would others?”

            Sam nodded. “Yeah, like it wouldn’t go inside some churches.”

            “What if we could box some of it up?”

            “You think if we let it lose in heaven it wouldn’t just—dissipate?”

            “Fuck if I know,” Dean said. “It’s either that or we have to lure it in. You know, some kind of Darkness magnet.”

            Sam, to his credit, did not look at Dean like he had lost his mind. “Light can push it back a little. Maybe a box made of light?”

            Dean thought laser beams and wouldn’t that be cool but it would be almost impossible to make a box made out of laser beams. Although Sam went online and ordered a laser from some website in China just to see what it did to the Darkness.

            “You know there’s only one place we’ve ever found any information connected to the Darkness,” Dean said. “That’s _The Book of The Damned_. Maybe we should find Rowena.”

            Sam groaned. To distract him, Sam showed him the website where he’d found the laser. Banggood.com. It looked a little shady and had some of the most awesome things Dean had ever seen on the internet. UV flashlights. A Multi-function Practical Mini Pliers Knife Screwdriver Bottle Opener All in One Tool Set. Drones. Just because, Dean conned Sam into buying him a remote controlled helicopter to fly in the Bunker. Then Cas showed up as he usually did at some point in the evening and rode with Dean when he went out to get take out.

            Next, Sam and Dean called Crowley on the phone.

            “Moose,” Crowley said, “Or is it Father Moose? I didn’t expect to hear from you again. I had heard you rather went into a decline when Dean died and withdrew from society.” It was amazing to hear that voice, so familiar, roll out of the phone. Five years meant nothing to him.

            “You’re on speaker, Crowley,” Sam said.

            “It’s Dean,” Dean said. “How’s your mother?”

            “Dean Winchester. As I live and breathe. Or actually, don’t. Do you? Are you living and breathing?”

            “Afraid so.”

            “And you sprung your brother from the convent. Pity. He did look so nice in the naughty nun outfit.”

            Dean knew he was supposed to hate Crowley and he did, he really did, but the guy was funny. Sam, on the other hand, had the look that said he had no trouble remembering he hated Crowley and did not find him at all funny. “Any idea where Rowena might be?” Sam asked.

            “Funny you should ask, Sam,” Crowley’s voice darkened with rage, “because no. She’s been no end of trouble for me but I haven’t known where she was since you decided to drive into the bloody Darkness, drag her out and get your brother killed. Which left us with the less entertaining Winchester.” Lines tightened around Sam’s eyes.

            “Crowley,” Dean growled, “You watch your mouth or after I find Rowena I’m going to shove my boot down your throat and leave bootmarks on your kidneys.”

            “I’m pretty sure that the day of the Winchesters has passed,” Crowley said and the line went dead.

#

            Research. Sam looked for patterns. Whenever _The Book of the Damned_ was used to do something, there were immediate dark consequences so he looked for strange natural disasters in the last five years—not just the usual lightening strikes and weird weather patterns associated with demons but bigger. Dean got his new credit cards and went to work putting the Ford Explorer back together in case they needed to explore the Darkness again. (And in apology, took the Impala out every day.)

            How had he ended this way? Living in a giant forgotten Bunker with his thirty-seven year old brother, both of them unmarried. Fighting with each other all the time but unable to be apart. Like they were trapped. Well he knew. He’d expected to die before now. Actually he had died before now, several times. What he hadn’t expected was the coming back alive.

            Not like that was something to expect.

            He couldn’t really get in his own head that he’d been dead. All being dead meant was Sam freaked out.

            Dead. Dead meant what? Dead just meant the job, right? Ganking monsters. Death was something he and Sam were hip deep in. Numb to. Maybe that was why he couldn’t even feel it. Like cops and EMTs and ER docs. He’d expected to be dead so often, had been dead enough, it was like death, the real, done for, never coming back thing had already happened.

            He glanced over at his brother peering at a laptop. (For a moment he thought about Cold Oak and it was like vertigo so he shut it down the way he always did.)

            Death really wasn’t the big deal. What happened after death was the issue, right?

            What had to happen was that neither of them could go to hell. If either of them went to hell, then the other one was going to do all sorts of crazy shit to get them back. Sam certainly wasn’t headed for hell. Maybe Sam was a saint.

            Fuck that, Sam was Sam and he was a lot of things but they weren’t saintly. What did being a saint even mean?

            On the other hand, if sainthood was as screwed up as angels were, then Sam was as likely to be a saint as anyone else. As long as it provided him with a get into heaven free card, Dean was on board with that. Heaven was not really great but it beat the alternatives.

            What if the politics in heaven changed? What if the angels decided they couldn’t go to heaven? Locked them out?

            He thought about shooting Sam in the head, right now. Drawing his gun. He could do it so Sam never even knew what happened. One minute looking at his laptop and BAM! Sam in heaven. Safe.

            Would that send his own soul to hell for fratricide? They’d been guarantied a place in heaven but shouting your brother. Besides he’d been brought back to fight the darkness so Sam wouldn’t be safe. There was no safety really.

            What was wrong with him that he could imagine himself _shooting Sam_?

            “Dean,” Sam said and Dean startled like Sam had somehow known what he was thinking. “Come look at this.”

            The laptop screen showed black badlands, ropey twisted rock interrupted by scrubby stubborn bush. “What is that,” Dean said, “North Dakota?”

            “A place in Georgia,” Sam said. “It used to be forest.”

            “Looks like backfire from _The Book of the Damned_ to me,” Dean said. “Road trip, Sammy.”

            “You want to tell Cas?”

            “You’re the praying type,” Dean said.

            “He’s your angel,” Sam said.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            Sam smiled.

            They packed and threw their duffels in the back seat of the Impala. The car rumbled to life and everything felt right. That night they stopped in a no-name motel somewhere in Kentucky. They were getting harder to find, those little strip motels. Replaced by Motel 6’s and Budget Inns. This one had been a chain at one point. It had two stories and the pool was filled in. The clerk was a pretty teenaged girl from India who spoke pure Kentucky. A door was open to the family apartments and through it Dean caught a glimpse of a teenage boy, face illuminated by the television, and heard the unmistakable sound of basketball. The UK Wildcats were apparently winning. The place smelled of Indian spiced cooking.

            Cas dropped in that night. He told them that he could not hear anything from the badlands. Angels couldn’t sense anything in it. Dean said that he and Sam would take care of it.

            They were on the road again early the next morning. They got another motel and took another night before facing the badlands, wanting to be rested and see it in daylight.

#

            In daylight it was something that made it hard to breath. They had been driving through Georgia pine and maple. thick weedy underbrush, insects whining. Dean had the windows down and Sam’s hair was all over the place. It was humid as anything.

            The black land started abruptly, clean as a paper cut. On one side was Georgia pine and maple, on the other was this baked and alien landscape. It stretched on as far as they could see. Sam’s map said it was about 20 sqr. miles.

            “You ever seen plants like that?” Dean asked.

            “No,” Sam said.

            The scraggly bushes had tiny paisley leaves. Really, some of the leaves were green and some were blue and the effect was like a man’s tie. Only skimpy. The grass was pale green and tentacle-ly. “This is like those Japanese cartoons,” Dean said.

            “Anime,” Sam said.

            “Ya’ll don’t want to go in there,” said a voice.

            Dean had his gun drawn before he saw the guy. Narrow man with dark hair and dark eyes, lined cheeks. He was sitting back in the trees. He wore jeans and heavy boots. He held his hands up, palms out and empty.

            “Why don’t we want to go in there?” Dean asked.

            “Weird things happen,” the man said. “You want to put the guns away?”

            Dean looked at Sam and they agreed and cautiously holstered their guns.

            “It’s illegal to go in there,” the guy said. “Funny you found this road.”

            “Funny you’re waiting here,” Dean said. Dean guessed they were about the same age.

            “My house used to be in there,” the man said.

            “I’m sorry to hear that,” Sam said. He walked over to the man, held out his hand. “I’m Sam. This is my brother Dean.”

            “Name’s John but folks call me Knuckle,” said the man. He was soft spoken. He shook Sam’s hand. Nodded at Dean.

            Knuckle told them about the badlands. He called it the Black Land. Said it had happened three years ago. It had started, ‘best anyone could tell’ in a spot near where Hogcrawl Creek crossed Jalapa Rd. Nothing there but trees and farms. His family had a farm about four miles from there and he worked at Flex-Tec in Byromville soldering circuit boards. He shrugged. “Farming doesn’t support a family no more,” he said.

            “It started and then it just grew like cancer, you know? So we moved out of course because we already saw what happened to people who tried to go into it. Like the deputy whose leg bones went soft.”

            “Went soft?” Dean said.

            Knuckle nodded. “Like rubber. He only walked a few feet in and you could just see them bowing. Like this,” he described a ‘c’ shape with his hands. “He was screaming and they was afraid of dragging him out but he dragged hisself to the edge and the other deputies, they pulled him out. He died but I don’t know what of. Rubber leg bones, I guess.”

            Knuckle sounded like Georgia but Dean thought maybe people had made the mistake of thinking he wasn’t smart and Knuckle had used that before. His marriage had crumbled under the strain of losing farm and job. He saw his daughter on Wednesday nights and Saturdays. She was six.

            “So I scavenge,” he said.

            Dean gave him a long look. “In there,” he said, indicating the Black Land.

            Knuckle nodded. “There’s a scientific research center from the government. They pay me for stuff. They don’t ask how I get it, I don’t call them cowards for not getting it themselves. And I sell to private collectors.” He smiled a little. “Got a lot of money put aside for Katie’s education. She’s gonna go to college if she wants to.”

            Not that different from how most people became hunters, Dean thought.

            “You want a beer?” Dean asked.

            “Wouldn’t mind one,” Knuckle said.

            “Do you guide people?” Sam asked.

            “I could, I don’t like it though,” Knuckle said. “People who don’t know the Black Land…”

            “End up with rubber legs,” Sam finished.

            Dean handed Knuckle a beer out of the trunk.

            “Thank you,” Knuckle said. He took a drink. “Why do you want to go in?”

            “We’re looking for someone we think is in there,” Dean said. “She has something of ours.”

            Knuckle got still. “You’re looking for someone in there? People don’t live in there.”

            “She’s not people,” Sam said. “She’s the witch who created the place. Her name is Rowena. She’s at least four hundred years old.”

            Dean waited. He thought the ‘monsters are real’ talk was a little premature.

            Knuckle looked at them for a long minute. “Tiny little thing with an accent?” he said. “Red head, looks in her fifties? More make-up than a party of bridesmaids?”

            Dean smiled. “That’s her.”

            Knuckle turned the beer bottle around and around in his hand. “Who are you?”

            “We’re hunters,” Dean said. “Monsters are real and we hunt them.”

            “Can this,” Knuckle gestured at the Black Land, “can it be, you know, made right?”

            Sam shrugged. “Maybe. The real weirdness like the rubber legs stuff, possibly, but making it green again, I doubt it. I think in time, nature will take care of it on it’s own. But we’re talking hundreds of years.”

            Knuckle finished his beer.

            “Something else you need to know,” Sam said. “All our friends, all our family, they’re dead because of monsters. We’ll do our best to protect you, but Rowena kills people as easily as you or I change our shirts.”

            The man looked out at the black ropey rock and the paisley scrub. Dean let him think. “This is sure fucked up,” Knuckle said finally.

#


	11. Into The Zone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Around them the ground dipped a little and rose. This must have been a hilly area at one point. Maybe there had been a stream. Knuckle pointed. “See that?”
> 
> Dean looked. He didn’t see anything but rock and weird scrub.
> 
> “Where it’s kind of shimmery?” Knuckle said.
> 
> Dean saw it then, but it just looked like heat haze a couple of yards away. “Yeah?” he said.
> 
> Sam nodded.
> 
> “Call that a ‘blender’.” Knuckle finished the water he was drinking and tossed the bottle towards the haze. The plastic bottle sailed lazily and then sped up like something was sucking it in. It went straight up inside the haze and turned translucent indigo, stretching, spiraling like it was inside a tornado, then darkening until it was as black as the rock. Abruptly it shattered and tiny sand sized shards sprinkled everywhere, even reaching them.
> 
> Sam had his arm half raised as if to shield himself.
> 
> “Usually,” Knuckle said, “I’m all about that take only pictures, leave only memories stuff. I hate when people leave trash when they hunt or camp. Here I don’t worry so much.”

*   *   *

11

            “I don’t know where your witch is,” Knuckle said. “I saw her a few years ago in town right before things all went to hell. I just had a feeling is all.”

            Sam and Dean both had old backpacks with supplies: weapons, ropes, water, and protein bars.  

            “Wait,” Sam said. “We should let Cas know.”

            “Hey Cas,” Dean said. “You in the middle of something?”

            There was the flutter. “Hello Dean. Hello Sam.” Cas was damp, like it had been drizzling wherever he was. He looked into the badlands, frowning.

            “Holy fuck,” Knuckle breathed.

            “Knuckle,” Dean said, “This is Cas.”

            “Where did you come from?” Knuckle said.

            “Tazlina, Alaska,” Cas said which was undoubtedly much more literal than Knuckle had expected.

            “What were you doing in Alaska?” Sam asked.

            “There was another possible recording and Paolo asked if I would check it out, but it was actually a moose,” Cas said.

            Dean found that ironic on several levels. “Cas is an angel and a friend. We just wanted to let him know what we were doing. So he wouldn’t worry.”

            “I will worry anyway,” Cas said.

            Knuckle was looking at Cas the way everybody did, taking in the trench coat, the suit, the tie. Dean explained that Knuckle was going to guide them and that the badlands were apparently exceptionally dangerous. Cas told them to be careful and Dean said they always were.

            “That’s not true,” Cas said gravely.

            “There’s no cell service in the badlands,” Sam said.

            “Would you like me to come with you?” Cas asked.

            Dean thought for a moment. “Maybe somebody ought to stay behind, just in case. We don’t expect this to take more than a day, right?”

            “I don’t want to be there overnight,” Knuckle said.

            “If I have not heard from you in 48 hours, I will organize a search party,” Cas said and disappeared in a flutter of wings.

            “Okay,” Knuckle said. “That was pretty damn convincing. I always thought angels would look different.”

            “They do,” Sam said. “We can’t actually look at what Cas really looks like. It would burn our eyes out. He’s a seraph. Four faces, six wings. His real name is Castiel. He’s the angel of Thursday.”

            “Stands before the throne of God, seraph?”

            Sam shrugged, “Something like that.”

            “Okay, we’re losing daylight,” Dean said. It was a little mean considering Knuckle had just met his first angel but as angel meetings go it had been an easy one.

            Knuckle kind of shook himself. Nodded. “You do what I say exactly. You step a foot off the path, it could be nothing happens, or it could be you’re dead. Best not to find out.”

            “Are there things in there?” Dean asked. “Like creatures?”

            “I’ve never seen any,” Knuckle said. “No birds. Not even bugs.”

He hiked his pack. “You ready?”

            He walked to the left side of the road, near where Dean had pulled the Impala off. There was a place where the black rock showed signs of foot travel. Hard to explain but it was a little flattened, a little dusty. Like a path. Knuckle put a foot across the border there and walked out into the Black Land.

            Sam followed and Dean took up the rear, staring at his brother’s broad back. He almost expected it to feel different when he stepped across but it didn’t. Nothing magical. Nothing mysterious. If he died was he in boomerang mode, would heaven just bring him back to life? What about Sam? Would they send Sam back?

            He had to stop thinking about death. Thinking about dying would get someone killed.

            The day had been warm and humid, spring in Georgia. Out here without trees it was still humid but the sun made it feel hotter. Sam had his shirt tied around his waist and there was sweat under his arms. Dean watched his brother’s boots, following the trace of a path. Sometimes they would turn ninety degrees for no particular reason. Sam would walk right to where Knuckle had turned and pivot there, no shortcutting. Dean would do the same.

            Knuckle stopped. Sam stopped. Dean stopped almost running into Sam.

            Around them the ground dipped a little and rose. This must have been a hilly area at one point. Maybe there had been a stream. Knuckle pointed. “See that?”

            Dean looked. He didn’t see anything but rock and weird scrub.

            “Where it’s kind of shimmery?” Knuckle said.

            Dean saw it then, but it just looked like heat haze a couple of yards away. “Yeah?” he said.

            Sam nodded.

            “Call that a ‘blender’.” Knuckle finished the water he was drinking and tossed the bottle towards the haze. The plastic bottle sailed lazily and then sped up like something was sucking it in. It went straight up inside the haze and turned translucent indigo, stretching, spiraling like it was inside a tornado, then darkening until it was as black as the rock. Abruptly it shattered and tiny sand sized shards sprinkled everywhere, even reaching them.

            Sam had his arm half raised as if to shield himself.

            “Usually,” Knuckle said, “I’m all about that take only pictures, leave only memories stuff. I hate when people leave trash when they hunt or camp. Here I don’t worry so much.”

#

            “So this is different than the other places?” Knuckle said.

            “Those are from The Darkness,” Sam said. “This is the side effect of a spell.” Dean let Sam explain. Sam liked knowing stuff and he assumed everybody else did, too. Sam thought when he was explaining stuff he was making people happy.

            “What kind of spell?” Knuckle asked.

            “We don’t know. But I’m thinking that Rowena wanted power and she sucked it out of the land here. She’s got some powerful enemies. Her son is the King of Hell.”

            Their boots scuffed against rock as they walked. A breeze had picked up.

            “You know you sound crazy when you say stuff like that,” Knuckle said.

            “Yeah,” Sam sighed. “I know.”

            “We haven’t even scratched the surface of crazy,” Dean said.

            “I always thought it was aliens that did this,” Knuckle said.

            Sam looked over his shoulder at Dean and Dean rolled his eyes.

#

            Knuckle stopped at one point and whipped out a telescoping wand. “Wait here,” he said.

            Like a blind man with a cane, he inched off the path, tapping. He moved so carefully. He’d tap all around in front of him, and then inch the toe of a boot forward slowly, six inches. It took him at least half an hour to go a dozen feet. Dean finally saw what he was going for. It looked almost like one of those glass fishing floats only it was iridescent. The iridescence was moving, swirls of green and blue and purple.

            Knuckle finally got to it. He slowly moved his hand towards it. There was an arc of electricity off of it, a tiny spark that leapt to his fingertip and all three of them jumped. Then Knuckle started over. He held his hand almost touching it for a long moment before he palmed it. It was bigger than a grapefruit, melon sized.

            Knuckle stepped backwards the same way he’d come forwards, slowly, carefully. When he got back to the ‘path’ Dean let out a breath.

            “Got a guy in China who collects these,” Knuckle said. He offered it to them. Dean took it. It was smooth and cool. “Don’t worry, they look fragile but they’re not like glass.” Where Dean’s fingers touched it, the iridescence swirled. “Nobody can figure out what they’re made of. But that’s a year’s worth of soldering circuit boards right there.”

            Dean gave it to Sam who held it with the same reverence, turning it in his long-fingered hands. He handed it to Knuckle who put it in his bag.

#

            Knuckle called a halt. “We’re as far in as I’ve ever gone.” They had been walking the crest of a hill where Knuckle had made them walk on spots that had been painted white by someone. He hadn’t explained who, how, or why and they hadn’t asked.

            “Can I spread some stuff out here?” Sam asked.

            “How spread out?”

            Sam gestured with his hands, about two and a half feet.

            Knuckle shrugged. “I think so.”

            Sam knelt and spread out a map of this part of Georgia. Dean dug out the copper bowl he’d lugged in. Sam had all the rest of the ingredients.

            “It’s a locator spell,” Sam said. “I don’t know if it will work. I’m not a witch.”

            “Sam’s actually a Jesuit priest,” Dean said.

            “I’m not ordained,” Sam said, annoyed.

            Knuckle looked at Dean and then at Sam trying to determine if they were pulling his leg.

            “First you go to priest school and then you do all sorts of weird stuff and finally they do some ceremony where they say you’re a priest and Sam won’t let them do that part. He’s met the pope, though,” Dean said.

            “It’s not that hard to meet the pope,” Sam muttered.

            Dean winked at Knuckle. “He’s sensitive about the whole priest thing,” he stage whispered. If he had to be in the middle of a magical wasteland where he might die in a trans-dimensional blender, at least he could annoy his brother. One had to take one’s jollies where one could.

            Sam glanced up at both of them and rolled his eyes.

            “Almost being a priest, does it help to fight monsters?” Knuckle asked.

            “No,” Sam said.

            “Maybe,” Dean said at the same time.

            Sam knelt on one knee, tucked his hair behind his ear and stirred together the ingredients for the spell. He cut his palm, dripped blood into the bowl and chanted Latin. The breeze picked up. That was usually a good sign but this time it was more than a breeze. It was a wind, too much.

            Magic was different in this place. Dean could smell it, like ozone.

            Sam lit the match and Dean expected it to go out but the fire was green. Sam glanced up at Dean and then back at the Georgia map. “ _Quia manifestaturus es_ ,” he said.

            He dropped the match in the center but as always, the map started burning from the outside edges. Movement caught the corner of Dean’s vision and it seemed as if giant pale green flames licked the horizons. “Saaammmy?” he said.

            Sam looked up from the map and then at Dean, eyes wide.

            The flames licked in from the edges of the map and as they did, giant pale green flames came silently towards them from every direction. Huge flames, dimmed by the sunlight, skyscraper tall.  Dean ducked and threw his arms over his head, a pointless gesture. The wind wound up in a sudden wind tunnel scream and died down just as quickly as something passed over them.

            Dean looked up and saw Knuckle and Sam were like him, crouched.

            The map was burned to a tiny circle and the breeze picked it up and flicked it off, fluttering like a leaf, but that didn’t matter because hanging in the air a hundred feet up was a farmhouse.

#


	12. Uncultured Company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Stop,” Sam said quietly. “Dean is saving your life. That bitch will kill you from up there. Put an attack spell on you that will burn you up like a match.”
> 
> “Then why aren’t you afraid of her?” Knuckle hissed.
> 
> “Because God just raised my brother from the dead to fight the Darkness which means he’s probably got some sort of protection,” Sam said. “So much as I personally would rather not be a fucking game piece in some huge celestial chess match, I probably am. You probably aren’t. I’m really invested in not having you killed right now.”
> 
> Knuckle’s eyes got wide and the knife wobbled. “You’re fucking with me.”
> 
> Sam’s eyes were like shards of glass. Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Really, he’s not fucking with you,” Dean said. “And of the two of us, most people think he’s the nice one.”

*  *  *

12

            It was painted red with white trim around the windows and a white porch.

            The air had gone utterly still, still enough to hear a woman’s voice with a strong Scottish accent say, “ _Winchesters_ ,” with more than a little disgust.

            “Aren’t you going to invite us in, Rowena?” Dean called.

            “I thought my life was pretty weird,” Knuckle said quietly. “I take it all back.”

            “I’d love to, but even your giraffe of a brother would find the first step a bit steep,” she said. She came out on the front porch dressed in a long blue dress.

            “Well how about coming down and saying hello,” Dean suggested.

            “Ach, I would if I could,” she called back. “You know how a lady hates to be rude. But I’ve no way down.”

            Sam’s lips twitched. “You mean you’ve been stuck up there for three years?”

            They couldn’t make out her face very well from this distance but it didn’t take much imagination to imagine her expression. “I’d have been grateful for even your uncultured company, Samuel Winchester.”

            “How have,” Sam was trying very hard not to laugh, “how have you been getting food?”

            “Conjuring it,” Rowena said. “But it’s rather crude and I have a refined pallet. You wouldn’t happen to have something tasty, would you?”

            “Protein bars,” Sam said. And lost his attempt to not laugh. Dean couldn’t help laughing, too. They’d been tense for hours and then there had been the spell and then the strangeness of the floating house. To now find themselves in a bitchfest with Rowena was…just too much.

            “You’re heartless, immature wretches,” Rowena shouted.

            “You caused all this,” Knuckle called up. He wasn’t laughing.

            “That’s hardly fair,” Rowena said.

            “My family’s farm was here,” he said.

            “Well, to be precise, it still is, lad,” she said.

            The laughter had drained out of Dean. He could feel Knuckle about to say something and he grabbed the man’s arm, hard, and shook him. Knuckle twisted out of his grasp and there was a knife under Dean’s chin before he knew it.

            “Stop,” Sam said quietly. “Dean is saving your life. That bitch will kill you from up there. Put an attack spell on you that will burn you up like a match.”

            “Then why aren’t you afraid of her?” Knuckle hissed.

            “Because God just raised my brother from the dead to fight the Darkness which means he’s probably got some sort of protection,” Sam said. “So much as I personally would rather not be a fucking game piece in some huge celestial chess match, I probably am. You probably aren’t. I’m really invested in not having you killed right now.”

            Knuckle’s eyes got wide and the knife wobbled. “You’re fucking with me.”

            Sam’s eyes were like shards of glass. Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Really, he’s not fucking with you,” Dean said. “And of the two of us, most people think he’s the nice one.”

            “Trouble in paradise?” Rowena sang out from above.

            Knuckle put the knife away.

            “Hey Sam,” Dean said loudly. “Want to head back to the motel? There’s got to be something good on pay-per-view.” Rowena had been stuck alone in that place for three years. She had to be getting a little crazed.

            “Boys, boys, boys,” she said, “don’t you want to have a little chat?”

            It was a complicated negotiation. Eventually they sent up all their ropes and she enchanted them into a kind of staircase. She came down with _The Book of the Dead_. She was as perfectly ladylike in her heels as ever, walking that strange rope stairway as if she were Gloria Swanson telling everyone she was ready for her close-up. (And almost as batshit crazy, Dean was pretty sure.) Her dress, when she got close, was blue lace. Whatever she had done that had ended up making the badlands had changed her. Her nails were talons and her face, despite the mask of make-up, was no longer quite human. She was probably radiating power.

            Sam handed her a protein bar. Sam had always been kinder than Dean.

            She peeled the wrapper carefully and _sniffed it_. Really? Then she tasted it and for a moment Dean saw a glimpse of her desperation because he could tell it was probably the best food she’d had in three years. But discipline. She took a bite and sniffed. “Thank you, Samuel,” was all she said.

            The deal was that they would get her down and lead her out of the wasteland. She would give them _The Book of the Damned_. They would not call Crowley about where she was and she would not harm them.

            Dean didn’t trust her but Sam’s look at him had suggested he had something up his sleeve.

            So they followed Knuckle back out of the Black Lands. Knuckle, then Dean, then Rowena, then Sam. Knuckle’s face was frightening. It was the face of a man who had no choice. If Dean wasn’t there he would have tried for her, not because he thought he could win but because she had taken away his family and a man did not back down. But he walked them back. It didn’t help that Rowena bitched. She bitched about the heat. She bitched about walking in heels. They hadn’t gone half and hour when he stopped and turned. He had a full water bottle in his hand. “Listen woman,” he said, “you don’t like this, you can find your own way back.” Then he tossed the water bottle into what as far as Dean could tell was an area of rock just like any other are of rock. The bottle flew until it hit a point and then it was as if the gravity there was five times the gravity where they stood. The bottle smashed against the rock and exploded, water everywhere.

            “We call it The Press,” he said to all of them. Then he shucked his pack and pulled off his shirt. He was a wiry, muscular guy but along the lines of his rib cage were scales, small and flat and beautiful, marking the ridges of where his rib bones would be under his skin. They were the iridescent blue green of the shining bauble he had found and would sell to the collector of China. “Every time one of us scavengers comes into this place it changes us a little more. This is my place, you bitch. And if you don’t shut the fuck up, I swear to God I’ll let it eat you alive.”

            Even Rowena knew when to close her mouth.

#

            The got to the border at dusk. They were not quite there when Dean said, “Rowena. The book.”

            “When we cross,” she said.

            Sam held up his cell phone. “I have a signal,” he said. He hit the call button. The phone started calling. “Calling Crowley.”

            “Now, Rowena,” Dean said.

            She narrowed her eyes to slits.

            “Moose,” said the phone. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

            She reached in her bag and tossed the book at Dean’s feet.

            “Sorry,” Sam said. “Misdialed.” He hung up.

            Dean picked up the book. It felt so strange in his hands. Heavier than it should have been for it’s size and…greasy.

            They walked the last few yards to the border and stepped into safe land. Rowena whirled and said, “ _Ut vobis quasi ignorantibus veritatem!_ ”

            The spell was directed at Sam. He looked startled and his hand came to his throat.

            She laughed and said, “Don’t worry, Dean, I’ve just given you what you’ve always wanted. Sam has to answer any question you ask him with the truth.”

            And then she turned and walked into the woods.

            “Dean,” Sam whispered. He looked terrified.

#

            The first question that Dean asked was an innocuous one. They were both trying to process what this might mean and Dean was so aware that somehow this was meant to fuck them over that he had decided to think first before asking anything. They had given Knuckle their contact info and tried to offer him payment but he had said that meeting an angel and getting the witch out was enough.

            Then driving back to the nearest decent size town Dean had said, “Where do you want to eat?”

            And Sam had said, “I don’t want to eat.”

            Unthinkingly Dean had said, “Aren’t you hungry?”

            “I’m almost always hungry,” Sam said, “but I don’t like to eat. Deciding what to eat is really complicated and when things are really fucked up, like they are now, it’s easier to just not think about it.”

            Dean had nearly driven off the road and had dragged the Impala off the shoulder and back onto the two-laned blacktop and said, “What the fuck!” Then he’d pulled over and stopped the car.

            Sam was staring out the front windshield.

            “What the fuck does that mean?” Dean said.

            “It means I have a fucked up relationship with food, probably an eating disorder that I’ve had since I was a teenager,” Sam said to the windshield, “but since I maintain a healthy weight I tell myself it really doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it with you because you’ll be angry about it.”

            Dean dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He knew Sam was weird about food. He knew this. But having it stated this baldly was a total mindfuck.

            “Okay,” Dean said. “So normally I would say something about dinner at this point and you would say ‘okay’.”

            Sam nodded, still not looking at him.

            “Then we would go someplace where you would get some kind of ceaser salad with chicken or salmon or something.”

            “Yeah,” Sam breathed and finally looked at Dean, eyes pleading to get them out of this.

            “Let’s do that.”

            Sam nodded.

            “Okay.”

            Dean eased the Impala back out onto the highway. They drove in silence for about five minutes. “Are we fucked?” Dean finally said.

            “We are well and truly fucked,” Sam said.

            “It’s a spell,” Dean said. “It should wear off, right? Then we’ll be okay.” As soon as he said it he realized the rhetorical question was a mistake.

            “If it’s just a straight spell then the best thing we can do is keep conversation to a minimum for awhile until it wears off,” Sam said. “But you’re not good at filtering what you say so even with that strategy, there are going to be some painful moments. You could drop me off somewhere for awhile and pick me up after a week or so and see if it’s wearing off.”

            “Sam,” Dean tried to interrupt.

           “In some ways I’d like that because I’m terrified of what I’m going to say to you,” Sam continued, clearly unable to stop, “but after you being dead for five years I’m also kind of keep expecting you to disappear or die again. On the other hand, for you it would be better not to listen to the kind of things I’m going to say so that’s probably a good strategy. If it’s a curse and it’s not going to wear off then I have no idea what to think about that and I think maybe I should take a pill.”

            The words just spilled. “Is this what it’s like in your head all the time?” Dean asked.

            “Yeah,” Sam said. “Only faster. With a lot more variables. I didn’t talk about the variables where you can’t stand it anymore and leave, because I figure that those are pretty minimal unless you think it’s for my own good or you’re really fucking pissed like after I opened the gate for Lucifer.” He was already reaching for his duffle and digging through for his freak out pills. “Or all the times I think about how much better it would be if I was just dead, except it wouldn’t because you get psychotic when I’m just dead and do really self-destructive things. I wish I could shut up. Besides, being dead isn’t really any better than being alive because heaven sucks. You’re not around. I like that I get a dog but everything else is pretty much an anxiety-fest. First day at Stanford was cool, you know, but I was also terrified everybody would realize I was a freak because none of them had grown up hunting monsters and living in hotels. Same with Thanksgiving which was awesome because I could pretend for awhile to be normal but I kept thinking how they—” Sam dropped back in the seat and threw back some capsules and chased them with a bottle of water, “—must be noticing that I had absolutely no idea how to act and which fork to use. Please stop asking questions, Dean.”

            “It’s okay, Sam,” Dean said.

            “Maybe I could cut my tongue out,” Sam said.

            “You can stop now.”

            “I’d probably have to write things down if I cut my tongue out,” Sam said.

            “Are you serious?” Dean said.

            “Yes,” Sam said.

            Dean opened his mouth, about to snap, how would you cut out your own fucking tongue, and then had enough sense to _not ask the question_. They were screwed.

            Dean pulled out his phone and called the King of Hell.

            “Dean,” Crowley said. “To what do I owe the dubious pleasure?”

            “We just found your mother,” Dean said. “I can tell you where your mother is. If you manage to grab her, Sam and I get an hour with her, conscious.”

            “New depths, Dean. I always thought you preferred younger women.”

            “Is it a deal?”

            “Yes,” Crowley said.

            “She’s wandering around the woods near Byromville, Georgia.”

            The line went dead.

#


	13. Lawyer Mode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam poured more whiskey.
> 
> “Have you eaten anything?” Dean said and then thought, crap, question.
> 
> Sam froze, bottle still in his hand. “I had an egg white omelet for breakfast after my run, then a salad with chicken for lunch. I haven’t eaten dinner,” he said carefully.
> 
> Stupid. Was he going to drink his dinner? Mope around? Sure this whole truth thing was annoying but it wasn’t a reason to go all goth girl.
> 
> Cas watched them.
> 
> “Eat something, Samantha,” Dean said, gritting his teeth. He was thirty-four, no, thirty-nine years old (how did he count the five years of being dead?) and still having to take care of Sam. God, he was tired.

*   *   *

13

            By the time they got to the Bunker, Sam was in some sort of lawyer mode, mostly answering questions in as few words as possible (with snark). Dean was trying to be careful but it was just too tempting not to screw with his brother.

            “What’s your favorite color, Sam?”

            “I don’t have a favorite color. What are you, six?”

            “Whose your final pick for March Madness?” Dean asked. Sam always pretended not to pay any attention to the college basketball scene but always seemed to know who was playing.

            “Duke or Kentucky.”

            “You hate Duke. You never pick Duke. Who were you going to claim was going to win?”

            “Xavier.”

            “Because?”

            “It’s a Jesuit College and an underdog. And fuck you Dean.”

            Dean wasn’t that into basketball, they scored too much, he preferred football. But he liked it on while he was cooking or while they were researching. It was fun to sit and watch together and pretend that they cared. The fun had gone out of it now. If Sam watched, it was in his room. Duke and Kentucky, as Sam had predicted, were headed for the final four. Xavier got eliminated in the second round and Dean couldn’t watch anymore. Sam was not speaking unless asked a direct question and then trying to give the shortest answers possible.

            The spell or curse didn’t wear off in a week. Cas couldn’t do anything.

            Dean knocked on his brother’s door.

            “It’s open,” Sam said. He was sitting on his bed, laptop open, notes surrounding him. He looked up, wary.

            “We’ll find a cure,” Dean said.

            “Last time we found a cure for something,” Sam said, “it didn’t work out so well. Our first priority is the Darkness. We find Rowena after that.” Unspoken was, ‘if we’re still alive.’

            “You can’t just hide in your room,” Dean said.

            Sam looked down at his book, muscles of his jaw working. Dean realized that whatever it was Sam was thinking he could finally force him to say it. He really didn’t want to know what Sam was thinking.

            “Have you found anything on getting the Darkness to attack heaven?” That seemed like a safe question.

            Sam had scanned all the pages of The Book of the Damned into his laptop and they had put the book into a warded box and given it to Cas to put somewhere. Like the moon. “No. I’m still translating,” Sam said. “Even with Charlie’s code breaker for the codex it’s very slow going. The book is…”

            “Is what?”

            “Creepy. Beautiful. Gross. Like some kind of strange poetry. I don’t like reading it but I kind of do, too.”

            Dean was really glad at this moment for the truth curse. “Awesome. Should I be worried?”

            “About what specifically?” Sam asked, lawyer mode engaged.

            “The effect of the book on you? What you’re reading? The whole creepy gross poetry thing? You gonna start shaving skin off and writing your own?”

            Sam shook his head. “It’s not going to control me or corrupt me. At least not any more corrupt than I have always been.”

            Dean tried to think about what to say. Did he say something about demon blood or did he ask the next question? He opted for the next question. “Are you hiding something from me about the book?”

            Sam’s look was scathing. “No. Don’t worry, Dean. You’re in control here. Not me.”

            “I’m not trying to control you,” Dean said. “Just, no secrets.” He had almost said, ‘no secrets, right?’ but that was a question and he didn’t really know what Sam would be forced to answer to that. He didn’t think he wanted to know.

            Sam took that like a hit and nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “I deserve that.” He swallowed, met Dean’s look.

            Damn right, Dean thought.

#

            Cas arrived with a flutter of wings. “Hello Dean.” Dean was in his room but his door was open and Cas had had the courtesy of arriving in his doorway. “Are you glad to be home?”

            “Yeah,” Dean said. They’d been at the Bunker for a week. “Why do you ask?”

            “I’m interested in the concept of ‘home’.”

            Dean thought this was a whiskey conversation. He headed down the hall. The bottle had been nearly full but there was a significant dent in it. Sam was apparently hitting it hard. Dean poured himself a healthy amount. “Don’t angels have homes?”

            “Before I was human I would have said that heaven is our home. Now I’ve experienced the way humans lack of senses leave you vulnerable and confused all the time and I understand how walls make you feel secure. It is different for you.” Cas looked up. “Hello Sam.”

            “Hi Cas,” Sam said. Dean noticed Sam was holding a glass.

            “It stirs out of its den,” Dean said.

            Sam grimaced and plopped down in a chair.

            “I was asking Dean if he was glad to be home,” Cas explained.

            “Yeah, you were talking about how we’re blind and confused,” Dean said.

            Castiel cocked his head. “You’re not blind, but your senses are confined to a very narrow range. I believe a home provides you with a sense of security. Sam has indicated that this is true.”

            “It’s a place to keep your stuff,” Sam said. “Don’t forget that.”

            “Yes, and you do have more stuff now,” Cas agreed. “You have the things in the kitchen and your memory foam.”

            Sam poured more whiskey.

            “Have you eaten anything?” Dean said and then thought, crap, question.

            Sam froze, bottle still in his hand. “I had an egg white omelet for breakfast after my run, then a salad with chicken for lunch. I haven’t eaten dinner,” he said carefully.

            Stupid. Was he going to drink his dinner? Mope around? Sure this whole truth thing was annoying but it wasn’t a reason to go all goth girl.

            Cas watched them.

            “Eat something, Samantha,” Dean said, gritting his teeth. He was thirty-four, no, thirty-nine years old (how did he count the five years of being dead?) and still having to take care of Sam. God, he was tired.

            Sam put down the whiskey and got up, not looking at anyone. He radiated shame. Cas and Dean sat in awkward silence—well, awkward for Dean, he had no idea if it was awkward for Cas since Cas was pretty much awkward all the time—listening to Sam root around in the kitchen.

            “You and Sam do not have very much stuff,” Cas said.

            “Sam’s making a joke,” Dean said. “It’s from a comedian, George Carlin. He said that a house was a place where you keep your stuff.”

            Sam came back with a turkey sandwich. “It’s a joke about consumerism,” he said.

            “Ah,” Cas said. “You are not much of a consumer, Sam.”

            “Neither is Dean,” Sam said.

            Cas turned his angel gaze on Dean. “But Dean does like things. He likes his car and the Bunker and his mattress. He likes guns. He likes flamethrowers.”

            Flamethrowers were awesome.

            “Are there any things that you like?” Sam asked Cas.

            “I like my car and my coat,” Cas said.

            Dean smirked at Sam and they shared an ‘oh Cas’ moment.

            “How about you,” Cas asked Sam.

            Sam thought, shrugged. “I guess I like my laptop.”

            Sam’s laptop was the replacement for the one he’d given Dean. He didn’t care about it the way Cas cared about his trench coat and certainly not the way Dean loved his baby.

            “What about the books?” Dean gestured at the library of The Men of Letters. He knew Sam loved them.

            “They’re not mine,” Sam said. “We’re just custodians. Anyway, if I like something, it’ll get taken away from me.” Sam’s eyes widened like he hadn’t known/expected that and then he took a drink of whiskey like he hadn’t said anything at all.

            Goddamn it, why did things always have to be about Sam? Sam and his precious sensitive feelings. It wasn’t like everything had been handed to Dean on a platter. Sam at least took a stand. Sam at least rejected everything that wasn’t _Sam_. Dean hadn’t had anyone standing between him and Dad. He’d had to buy the whole crap package. His father’s car. His father’s music. The Bunker was from his grandfather. His life was a patchwork of other lives, other people’s jobs. Some days Dean wasn’t even sure there was a real ‘Dean’ down there.

            What would Sam think if he told him that? Huh?

            Sam was watching him like…like he was a grenade.

            Fuck them both.

            Dean threw the glass against the wall as hard as he could, swept up the whiskey bottle and stomped to his room. At least his mattress was his own.

#

            “Get this, it’s like the Werther Box,” Sam said. He put the laptop in front of Dean. There was a schematic, a kind of blueprint, on the screen. A box with cogs and gears.

            “Oh no,” Dean said. “That was a bad idea.” He remembered the Werther Box. Sam hung over the bowl in front of it, wrists and forearms sliced open, bleeding himself dry by inches to coax the mechanism. Sam had almost bled himself to death feeding that thing.

            “We can design the key to be anything we want,” Sam said.

            “You're talking blood magic, so it’s going to have to be that or some kind of sacrifice, right?”

            A question. Sam fought, an internal battle against the spell, before the words forced themselves out with a little gust of air, “Yeah. Blood. Or sacrifice.”

            Sacrifice. Dean knew his brother. Drawn to the word sacrifice like a cop to doughnuts. “Were you going to feed yourself to it?” Dean asked.

            “I was going to try to figure out a way to make it as small a sacrifice as possible.” Sam massaged his temples with long fingers. “And I want to be the one to do it. But I didn’t know how we were going to do it yet.”

            “Goddamnit,” Dean said. “You were going to say some bullshit and then do it, whatever it is.”

            Sam nodded, eyes on the table, “Probably. If it came down to you or me.”

            “And around and around we go,” Dean said.

            “You deserve better,” Sam said.

            Dean slammed his open palms on the table and Sam jumped. “What the fuck does that even mean!”

            Sam closed his eyes as if in pain. “Dean,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t have asked that.”

            “Tell me,” Dean snarled.

            “Because you don't need to be trapped this way—”

            “Trapped?” Dean said. “Oh come on. I’m not trapped.”

            “Yes, you are. You put family before anything, anything, even the safety of the world and that’s me. I’m what’s left of our family.”

            “Okay,” Dean said, getting up. “Just stop.” He walked towards his room.

            Behind him, Sam’s chair grated against the floor as he stood up and followed. “You sold your soul to come back and find a, demon blood junkie. You’ve had to take care of me when I was a psychotic freak who almost shot you because I thought you were the devil.” Sam’s voice had dropped to almost a murmur. A low, hopeless litany.

            “Sam—,” Dean turned.

            “You had to sleep in the same room with me when I was soulless, not knowing—”

            Dean grabbed Sam’s shoulder, “Shut. The fuck. Up.”

            Sam looked at him, raw, “I can’t. It’s a spell. You asked. I have to tell you the truth. If you walk away, I have to follow you. If you lock your door, I have to wait outside your room until you come out. You were right that Benny was a better brother than me. You were right that I should have been on the pyre instead of Charlie. You were right.”

            Dean took a step back. “I…I say shit when I get mad. You know that.”

            “You say the things that you won’t let yourself say when you aren’t.” Sam said. “I know you...you love me, Dean, but there are lots of times you don’t really like me.”

            “Sammy, that’s not true.” But it was. There had been lots of times he hated his little brother and he had wanted to let Sam know. Had seen his words hit like bullets. But Sam had done things to him, too. Sam walked away, got out of the car and walked, went to Stanford, left him.

            Sam looked up at him for a moment. “Really, after the things I’ve done, I don’t blame you,” Sam said. His voice was helpful, as if he knew what Dean was thinking, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “You can’t depend on me but you, you just can’t walk away from family. So you’re trapped. _You’re fucked if something happens to me and you’re fucked if you have to live with me.”_

            “It’s not like that,” Dean said. “I don’t feel trapped.”

            “I’m like a needle in your heart.”

            “Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t be a drama queen, Sam.”        

            “Something has been wrong in me since I was six months old. You did your best. If _anyone_ deserves to bleed, it’s me. You deserve better.”

            “Don’t say that. That’s…it’s all wrong, twisted,” Dean said.

            “Heart’s needle, Dean,” Sam said. He swallowed. “Every time your heart beats, I cause you pain.”

#

            After Sam had finished he had walked carefully past Dean as if all his ribs were broken, holding his body perfectly still. Dean had thought about going after Sam but all he could think to say was ‘it’s not true’ and he was pretty sure he’d already said that. He sat in his own bedroom, cross-legged on his bed.

            “Cas,” Dean whispered. Since he had come back, Cas came every time he called. He came this time as well.

            “Hello, Dean.”

            “Sam…” what could he say?

            Cas’ eyes narrowed and he cocked his head. “You had a fight? You aren’t drinking.”

            “No,” Dean said. “He thinks he’s a…horrible person or something.”

            Cas waited like he expected Dean to say more.

            “He thinks he deserves to die,” Dean said.

            Cas waited some more, almost like he thought this was building to something. Like that wasn’t enough. After a moment he said, tentative, “Has Sam…harmed himself?”

            “No. He wants to build a box to trap some of the Darkness in. Well, we both want to do that.” They had told Cas about their plan to lure Lucifer into battle. Cas didn’t like it but he understood it. “It would require something, like blood, or a sacrifice. He was planning to do it to himself.”

            “But you discovered this before it was built,” Cas said. “That’s good, isn’t it? Usually Sam’s hurt himself before you find out.”

            “Why would he do something like that?”

            “Sam has always been like that,” Cas said, looking confused. “He jumped into the Pit. You said he was willing to let you kill him with Death’s scythe.”

            “It’s my fault,” Dean said.

            “Oh,” Cas said, grave and gravelly. “Now I understand. _You_ always think you failed.”

            “Is it my fault?”

            “I don’t know,” Cas said. “I understand humans better than I used to but you’re still very confusing.”

            “Would you check on him?”

            The angel crossed the hallway.

            He heard Cas knock on Sam’s door and identify himself. Heard the door open and close. After a few minutes he turned on his television to distract himself. He couldn’t concentrate on _Megaweapons of Nazi Germany_ or _The Avengers III_ so he disassembled and reassembled a gun. He got up and walked to the kitchen and then stood there, trying to remember what he’d come to the kitchen for.

            He went out into the garage and sat in the Impala but then he was worried that Cas wouldn’t know where he was so he went back in.

            He thought about drinking.

            He went back down the hall and slide down the wall to sit outside Sam’s room and wait.

            Eventually Sam’s door cracked open and Sam walked out. He was surprised to see Dean sitting in the hallway. He sighed, “Hey, Cas, you want to get yourself that beer?” He came out into the hall and slid down the wall to sit next to Dean. Cas came out the door, looked at the both of them for a moment and then walked down the hallway towards the kitchen. After a minute Sam said, “I’m sorry I upset you, dude.”

            “If you don’t stop saying ‘sorry’ I’m going to punch you.”

            “Would it make you feel better?”

            Dean laughed a little, “For about,” he shrugged, “ten seconds. Then I’d feel like an even bigger shit.”

            There was a long silence. “How good would you feel in the ten seconds?” Sam asked.

            Dean glanced over at him. Sam had a bit of a smile. Dean bumped his shoulder. “You’re the only person I can stand to be around, Sammy.”

            “Besides Cas.”

            Dean nodded. “Besides Cas.”

            “I’m the only person among all our friends and family who isn’t dead. It’s not a ringing endorsement.”

            “I told you that there was nothing that I would put in front of you,” Dean said. “I meant that.”

            Sam patted his knee. “I know, Dean.” Sam was being nice. There was more he was not saying.

            He wasn’t saying it right, he knew. He didn’t have the words. “You’re not a bad person.”

            “I’m represent thousands of years of angel engineering for the express purpose of being a bad person,” Sam said. “I was meant to destroy the world. I still might, thanks to The Darkness.”

            “That’s not on you,” Dean growled.

            Cas was coming back with three bottles of beer. Sam looked up and at him and smiled, reached out for a cold bottle. “It is what it is,” he said. Then, “Thanks, Cas.”

            Cas sat down in the hall and leaned against the wall.

            Sam lifted a bottle, “To an ex-blood junkie, a drop out who keeps saving the world, and an angel of the Lord.”

            Cas clinked Sam’s bottle. “Doesn’t Dean have a G.E.D.?”

            “We talked about you a lot in Italy,” Sam said to Dean by way of explanation.

            Dean knew the toast was wrong. Sam was the man who defeated Lucifer. But he clinked.

#

 

 

 


	14. Matched Swords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then everything cleared up. He knew this was…a dream? Not a dream but like a dream. Dreamwalking or some shit. Some guy—his Dad. But young, younger than him. The guy they’d met in the past, the guy he’d convinced to buy the Impala instead of that crappy van. He was wearing some kind of leather apron thingy and big huge leather gloves and hammering, intent on what he was doing. The hammering was the sound of metal on metal. They were outside of a kind of rough shed, in a little clearing surrounded by trees with leaves the pale green of spring.
> 
> Dad had some crazy skills, making his own bullets, crap like that, but he’d never been an iron smith. At least not that Dean knew about.
> 
> So Not Dad.
> 
> “Who are you?” Dean said.
> 
> The man glanced over and smiled. “Dean.” He put the hammer down and pulled off the gloves. He gestured towards the set-up: hammer, forge, big iron thingy for hammering on (anvil? Didn’t look like the ones dropped on Wiley Coyote). “One of the things we have in common. We like making.”

*   *   *

14

            Dean found a fabricator to machine the gears and cogs for the Darkness Box. He drove into town and opened a new P.O. Box at the Mailboxes Etc., separate from the one they had at the post office. He didn’t plan to let Sam get anywhere near the mechanism. Sam was the one who could actually do the magic since he’d done the research but Dean planned to watch him like a hawk.

            He came out into the afternoon sunlight and decided on a beer. He texted his brother and asked if he wanted to come have a drink, offered to pick him up. He already knew Sam would say no. Sam was convinced Dean would ask him a question, either intentionally or accidently, that he didn’t want to answer in public or maybe anywhere. Sam said he had research.

            So then Dean called Cas.

            “Where are you?” Cas asked.

            “I was thinking of getting a drink,” Dean said. “Are you busy?”

            “You are more important than anything else I would be doing,” Cas said.

            “You can be busy,” Dean said, “it’s just a beer.”

            “I would like to have a beer with you,” Cas said.

            Dean wondered what he would do if Cas ever said something like, ‘sure, a beer sounds great!’ or ‘hell yeah, it’s beer o’clock.’

            He pulled into the parking lot, a few four o’clock drinkers already parked. Spring took longer to get to Kansas than it did to Georgia but he was feeling warm. He stood next to the Impala for a moment, hoping that the cool prairie air would wash away the beginnings of a headache. Dean wasn’t a headache kind of guy, that was Sam’s gig. Dean was more a thrown-into-too-much-shit-my-knees-will-never-be-right kind of guy but being resurrected always took care of that for awhile.

            The pain in his temples was so sharp he would have looked for who did it to him if he could get up off his knees. He was holding his head. Holy shit. Everything around him was tunnel vision. He couldn’t see. He thought, _Sam. God, Sam, help me_. And then, _Cas_. He was stroking out or something.

            Then everything cleared up. He knew this was…a dream? Not a dream but like a dream. Dreamwalking or some shit. Some guy—his Dad. But young, younger than him. The guy they’d met in the past, the guy he’d convinced to buy the Impala instead of that crappy van. He was wearing some kind of leather apron thingy and big huge leather gloves and hammering, intent on what he was doing. The hammering was the sound of metal on metal. They were outside of a kind of rough shed, in a little clearing surrounded by trees with leaves the pale green of spring.

            Dad had some crazy skills, making his own bullets, crap like that, but he’d never been an iron smith. At least not that Dean knew about.

            So Not Dad.

            “Who are you?” Dean said.

            The man glanced over and smiled. “Dean.” He put the hammer down and pulled off the gloves. He gestured towards the set-up: hammer, forge, big iron thingy for hammering on (anvil? Didn’t look like the ones dropped on Wiley Coyote). “One of the things we have in common. We like making.”

            Fuck. Had to be Michael. “We don’t have much in common.” It felt more real than a dream. He could scrunch his toes in his boots. He still wanted a beer.

            “You’ve never tried this,” Not-Dad said. He picked up a long sword, almost as long as Dean was tall. “There’s a lot you’d like about it, making swords.”

            The hair stood up on the back of Dean’s neck. Michael and swords was not a combination he liked. “Look, if I’m having a stroke, there are supposed to be harps and shit, not hammers.”

            “You’re not having a stroke,” Not-Dad said.

            “This is what, vocational school with the angels?”

            “It takes a great deal of strength to be a smithy,” Not-Dad said. “You say ‘iron smith’ and everybody thinks of big bulging muscles. But a sword maker has to be patient and smart. Good with their hands smart. Like a good mechanic. This is a two handed sword. It was made specifically for one particular warrior to use.” Not-Dad swung it up and propped it on his shoulder. The sword flashed in the sunlight. Then he swung it until it came upright in front of him, using both hands, and the light just shivered off it. “It’s got beautiful balance. It took over 70 years to forge this sword.”

            “You compensating for something you lack?” Dean asked.

            Not-Dad might have smiled. “It was never used, you know.” He put the sword down with reverence. “But it’s got new purpose now.”

            “Is this all supposed to mean something? Cause I always hated all that symbolism crap in high school. Two roads in a wood stuff. I sucked at that. So if you want me to know something you should just tell me.”

            Not-Dad picked up another sword, Dean hadn’t even seen it, was pretty sure it hadn’t even been there. It was slightly shorter and Not-Dad could swing it one handed. It didn’t take knowing about swords to see it was as much a piece of art as a weapon. “This one’s got quite a history. It was used and then re-forged. It didn’t behave as expected when it was first used. Re-forging took millennia.”

            Not-Dad laid the two swords side by side. “As you can see, they’re a pair.”

            The swords were not alike but they did compliment each other. The pommels, the plainness of the blades, the workmanship.

            Not-Dad picked up the second sword, the sword that had taken thousands of years to forge.

            “So are you going to tell me something or are you just going to talk about swords? ‘Cause all this is probably entertaining as fuck for you, but I’m really not a renaissance fair kind of guy.”

            Not-Dad tapped the sharp edge of the sword he was holding against the iron of the anvil. Like the thoughtless drumming of fingers. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. “Funny thing, the harder something is, the more brittle it is. There are tricks used to get around that in making weapons. Japanese sword makers fold the steel over and over and over to almost laminate it.” Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

            It was a lousy thing to do to an edge. It would nick it, lots of little nicks. To do it to a really fine blade set Dean’s teeth on edge.

            He clenched his fists.

            “One sword isn’t enough, Dean,” Not-Dad said. “It’s a fine sword against the Darkness, fine enough that the pair had to be put back together.”

            Tink-tink-tink-tink-tink.

            Not-Dad lifted the sword away from the anvil. “You’ve been treated badly. I’m sorry. But maybe you should stop taking it out on your brother.” The world churned before Dean could respond and the tink-tink-tink-tink-tink was in his head, spikes of agony. He was fucking blind from it. Someone was making low, hurt noises, exhalations of pain.

            Oh shit, it was him.

            Cas was there. How had Cas found him? “Dean.”

            “Head,” Dean said.

            Then he was in the Bunker. The Bunker was better because there was no daylight and daylight was the stupidest idea ever. Holy shit who had ever thought there should be daylight? He heard Sam’s voice, voices were also a stupid idea. Then hands on his face.

            He felt nauseated.

            “Dean,” Sam said. “Dean, what happened?”

            “Don’ know,” Dean said. “Head and then like tunnel and then talking to dude who wasn’t Dad.”

            Sam was talking to Cas about getting something.

            “Stop talking,” Dean whispered.

            “Come on,” Sam said quietly. “Up.” Sam hoisted him to his feet and got him to his room and laid him out on his back on his bed. The only light was from the hall. The nausea receded in the dark and the quiet. Sam’s hands were oh so gently rubbing his neck and God help him he whimpered. Then there was a cold cloth over his eyes. Someone pulled off his boots.

            “Just rest,” Sam whispered. “Sleep if you can.”

            The pain wouldn’t let him sleep at first. Sam made him sit up and take a couple of pills with cold water and then lay down. The cloth would stop being cold and then a new cold, damp cloth would arrive.

            He wanted to stop thinking but he thought about the swords and the Darkness and the swords poking swiss cheese holes in the Darkness and the tap-tap-tap-tap-tap and the tink-tink-tink-tink-tink. That would make him feel sick so he’d try not to think. But his thoughts would run like a hamster on a wheel. Around and around.

            Finally he slept.

            He didn’t know how much later he woke up. His room was still dark. The damp cloth was long gone. He had a kind of dull ache but after whatever the hell that was before it didn’t even deserve the name headache. He felt like he’d been granted a reprieve. He sat up and put his feet on the floor, feeling cool through his socks.

            Sam and Cas were sitting in the library. Sam was on the laptop and Cas was looking at a book. Sam looked up and then came to his feet, “Dean.”

            “I’m fine,” Dean said. He felt a little like he’d been put through the wringer but nothing really seemed wrong. It was a little after nine.

            “Cas said he found you in a parking lot next to the Impala having some sort of migraine or something.”

            “Yeah, I guess,” Dean said. “I think I talked to Michael.”

            “My brother?” Cas said.

            “Are you okay?” Sam asked.

            “Yeah,” Dean said to both. “He looked like Dad only, you know, young. Like our age, younger even. He was working in one of those blacksmith things. Heavenly Colonial Williamsburg. He gave me a lecture about swords and bitched at me about being a bad brother.”

            Sam physically recoiled, shoulders and head going back almost as if he’d been slapped.

            Cas cocked his head. “You had a vision of Michael?”

            “That’s what visions are like?” Dean said, looking at Sam. “I thought your visions didn’t give you headaches anymore.” He didn’t mean his voice to sound quite so accusatory.

            “The visions of the other psychic children were rough,” Sam said defensively. “You kind of learn how to…ride them. Now I’ve learned how to just let them take me. I don’t fight anymore and the good ones don’t hurt, they just leave me feeling really washed out.”

            “I’d rather be kicked in the ‘nads then go through that again,” Dean said.

            “You are not inclined to ‘not fight’,” Cas said. He did not actually make air quotes for which Dean was grateful.

#

            The Darkness Box was going to take about twenty days to fabricate. Sam had found a wood worker who could make the outer box. It was made of Cedar of Lebanon and inlaid with ebony, holly, and rowan. Sam had sent sigils to be inscribed on all six sides. Until the mechanism and the box were done there wasn’t anything to do but wait.

            “Sam,” Dean said, finding his brother in his bedroom.

            Sam looked up from where he sat on his bed, legs stretched out, ankles crossed, laptop on his lap. His feet were bare. Sam didn’t talk anymore unless a direct response was required. Dean tried not to ask questions but it turned out he said things like ‘what the fuck?’ a lot more than he realized.

            “We’re just killing time until the box is done. I know our first priority is the Darkness.”

            Sam nodded.

            “While we’re waiting we should track down Rowena.”

            Sam shook his head and looked back down at the laptop.

            “Sam.”

            Sam looked up but didn’t lift his head all the way. When he did that it always accentuated the slant of his eyes.

            “This is stupid,” Dean said. “You’re afraid to be around me in case I ask some stupid question. I’m afraid to talk to you. Angels are yelling at me that I treat you like shit.”

            Sam finally spoke. “You always said angels were dicks.”

            “I’m not talking about angels,” Dean said.

            The look Sam gave him was very clear that Sam thought Dean was missing the point.

            “Pack up, we leave in fifteen.”

            “No.”

            “Why not?” Dean said and then realized it was a question. Then thought, wait, he was allowed to ask questions when people would normally ask questions.

            “We should fight the Darkness. Not risk getting hurt or killed going after Rowena. And I want to work some more on translating the book,” Sam said. “This isn’t actually a dictatorship.”

            “This is for your own good,” Dean snapped.

            Sam had apparently said all he was going to say. It didn’t stop him from giving Dean the finger.

#

            Sam didn’t pack up. Dean told him he was being a self-absorbed, selfish dick. Sam closed his door. Dean opened the door back up and said what the fuck? Sam was obligated to tell the truth to all Dean’s questions but evidently he didn’t have to say it over and over, so he just said, “I already told you.” He closed his eyes for a moment, still sitting on the bed, as if praying for strength.

            “This is for you,” Dean growled.

            Sam didn’t say anything.

            “I know we have to fight the Darkness, but since we can’t do that, why not try to do something to make our lives better, make your life better? Are you some kind of freaking masochist?”

            Sam smiled slightly, “Are you asking me if I derive pleasure from pain, Dean? Because I _have_ to tell you the truth. I admit, I haven’t really thought about it and I suspect it would be a long and complicated answer—”

            “Fuck no!” Dean said.

            Sam got up and walked to the door. “I already told you why we should wait to face Rowena after.” He started to close the door.

            Dean saw red. He slammed the door open and stepped into Sam’s room. He grabbed the front of his brother’s t-shirt. Sam’s eyes flicked past his face, over his shoulder in a way almost reminiscent of when he used to see Lucifer but Dean didn’t care. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said. He was ready to punch something. Ready to punch Sam who looked infuriatingly unmoved, arms at his sides, not even trying to defend himself. “You’re going to do this if it kills you—” He had Sam’s shirt bunched in his fist and his brother dragged towards him, Sam balancing slightly bent over and awkward.

            Cas said from behind him, “Dean.”

            “Stay out of this, Cas,” he rumbled.

            “Are you going to hit me?” Sam asked quietly. His eyes were inches from Dean’s. Dean realized his free hand was clenched in a fist, ready to hit…something. Sam would take it. Sam had taken it for years, since Ruby. The last time Dean had gone after Sam he’d been a Knight of Hell and even then, his brother had dropped the knife. Here Dean was, with Cas behind him, ready to do…what?

            “It’s okay,” Sam said quietly. “Just breathe.”

            “Let go of your brother,” Cas said and put his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

            What were they doing, some kind of intervention? Some kind of set-up? The assholes! He shook Cas’ hand off and turned and stalked down the hall. _Stalked with a hammer in his hand, feeling lit and feral, ready to draw blood, almost smelling it in the air, calling Sammy? Alive. Electric with desire._ Anger like a drug. Anger made everything wash clean just as alcohol made every feeling drown.

            He had a right to be angry! He had a right to take care of his brother! His brother was cursed, goddamnit! It was making them both crazy! Since when did Cas go taking Sam’s side?

            He slammed out the door into the garage, dug out the keys and climbed into the Impala. Baby roared for him. His hands were shaking with righteous rage. The road the road.

#

 

 


	15. Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sam met a reaper?” Dean said.
> 
> “In the hospital,” Cas said. “She’s taken over for Death. The reapers are angry at you for killing him.”
> 
> “So my soul got thrown into—what?”
> 
> “The Empty, except it didn’t,” Cas said.
> 
> “What’s the empty?”
> 
> “Everything that isn’t,” Cas said.
> 
> “Isn’t what?”
> 
> “Everything else,” Cas said as if that explained.

*   *   *

15

            The hum of asphalt talked him down. He kept having flashes of times he had died. Hellhounds and Roy and Walt and Purgatory (not really a death but it felt like one) and laying in the Explorer with Sam driving in the Darkness knowing this one was bad. He hadn’t asked about it, hadn’t wanted to think about it. It all ends bloody or sad. Or bloody and sad. Did the details really matter?

            He ended up heading for Wichita for no particular reason and found a motel and a bar. The bar was long and narrow, the kind that was dark in the middle of the afternoon. His phone buzzed when he was on his second shot and beer and he answered.

            “Hello, Dean,” Cas said.

            “I’m just outside Wichita,” Dean said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

            “Yes, well,” Cas said, “you asked me on Tuesday if I would have a beer with you but then you had a vision and it was not an opportune time. I was wondering if, as you say, you were busy or if you’d like to have a drink?”

            Dean listened to Aerosmith declare _‘Walk this way, talk this way,’_ and tried to think if he was up to Cas at the moment. The bar was so male that the two women in it might as well have been guys. He wasn’t sure he was interested in scoring tonight anyway. Okay, scratch that, he would have been interested in scoring had there been a likely possibility.

            “Did I not say that correctly?” Cas asked.

            “No, no, you said it exactly right, Cas. Yeah. It would be great to have a beer.” Dean gave him the name of the bar and waited for the flutter of wings.

            Instead after a moment Cas walked in the door, the late afternoon sun startling in the dim light. The place was about half Latino and all working guys in jeans and Carhart but no one did more than glance at the holy accountant. Dean grabbed his beer and left his empty shot on the bar and found them a table.

            “So you and Sam,” Dean said. “Best buds these days.”

            Cas tilted his head. “Sam and I are friends, yes.”

            “You used to hang out in Rome.”

            The bartender came over and Dean ordered a Del Sol for Cas and another round for himself.

            “Are you angry at me?” Cas asked, clearly perplexed.

            Dean shook his head, suddenly feeling tired. “No. Just, feels like,” _feels like you’re ganging up on me._

            “Sam stayed alive for me,” Cas said. “I am very grateful to him.”

            Dean frowned. “Say that again?”

            “I assumed that when you were dead, Sam would soon die,” Cas said. It was very Cas, stated like one would say, _I assumed given America’s reliance on cars, the price of gas will increase in the next decade_. “As he explained it to me, it isn’t that he particularly wants to be dead since he’s been dead and hasn’t enjoyed it. It’s just that he doesn’t like being alive so without you here. He doesn’t have much reason to be alive and a very good reason to be dead.”

            “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean said. “What the hell are you saying? Are you saying Sammy is suicidal?”

            “No, of course not,” Cas said. “I’m saying he wanted to be with you. Just as you were frantic when he was in the Cage. Since he was hunting alone it was only a matter of time.”

            Deans shot and beer arrived, along with Cas’ beer. Dean slammed his shot and signaled for another.

            “He was particularly distraught since he blamed himself for your death,” Cas continued.

            “Sammy blames himself for everything,” Dean said.

            “Your death was entirely my fault,” Cas said. “There was nothing for Sam to blame himself for.”

            “Oh come on now,” Dean said. He didn’t think he could handle any more of these conversations. “I can’t remember everything but I can remember you weren’t even there.”

            “Yes, that's why,” Cas said.

            The hunt, Cas explained, had gone wrong as Dean remembered. They were in the Darkness, tracking Rowena, and they had been attacked by things that had once been people but were now the color of blood. He and Sam were holding off the blood people while Rowena got in the Explorer when one of the things ripped him open diagonally ribcage to hip. It was a pretty deep puncture at the hip, he’d been trying to hold himself together with his hands while Sammy pushed him into the back of the Explorer.

            Rowena had some spell that held him closed like a change purse, at least for awhile. They were deep in the Darkness and Sam was snarling at Rowena and desperately gentle with Dean when they stopped. He could remember Sam’s long fingers on the sides of his face while he whispered, _“You’re okay, you’re okay, I know it hurts but you’re okay.”_

            He’d known he wasn’t okay and he was pretty sure he explained that in pretty vivid detail at one point but he wasn’t sure. He also remembered Sam changing the bandage and saying, “Don’t look, Dean. Eyes on me, big brother.” He had a suspicion that he’d have seen viscera if he’d looked.

            The Explorer ran out of gas when they cleared the Darkness and Sam had to get the Impala. Rowena was gone with the book. The spell didn’t hold and then things were wrong. He remembered a flash of Sam driving the Impala, the back of Sam’s head, and horrible pain like hell, like organs in the wrong place.

            He had no memory of the hospital.

            Cas said he was still alive at the hospital. “Sam had been praying, calling me since you got out of the Darkness but we were in battle. The Darkness was pushing outward, expanding to connect a corridor between two areas. Your heart gave out. Sam was worried because a reaper had just told him that if you or he died, they were going to cast your souls into the Empty.”

            “Sam met a reaper?” Dean said.

            “In the hospital,” Cas said. “She’s taken over for Death. The reapers are angry at you for killing him.”

            “So my soul got thrown into—what?”

            “The Empty, except it didn’t,” Cas said.

            “What’s the empty?”

            “Everything that isn’t,” Cas said.

            “Isn’t what?”

            “Everything else,” Cas said as if that explained.

            Right. “So how come I’m not in the empty?” Dean asked.

            Cas shrugged. “I don’t know. Sam believes it’s because of my father. Your soul just appeared in heaven.”

            Like when they found themselves on the airplane after killing Lilith. “I bet that got angel panties in a twist.”

            “Angels don’t wear panties,” Cas said. “Sam demanded that they put you on life support, so I could come and heal you but the physician said it was pointless, you were irrevocably dying and it would be cruel. Sam assaulted him and they called for security. Security couldn’t subdue Sam so they sedated him and put him on psychiatric lockdown for 48 hours. By the time I got there, you had been dead for seven hours and fourteen minutes and I couldn’t revive you.”

            “It’s not your fault that I died,” Dean said. It was his own damn fault, or nobody’s. It was hunting. People died.

            “If I had saved you, that would have done more against the Darkness than having one angel soldier in the battle,” Cas said. “Now when you or Sam call, I’ll always answer.” Cas sipped his beer.

            “How’s it taste?” Dean wanted to change the subject. He’d died. Lost five years. Cas thought Sam would die because Dean was dead. Up until now it hadn’t felt real, those five years.

            Cas nodded his head as if judging. “There are a lot of carbon atoms. But mostly hydrogen and oxygen combined as water.”

            He could grin at that. “Sam didn’t die,” he said. “'Cause Sam’s stronger than people know, right?”

            “Sam was worried about me,” Cas said.

            “Cas? You, were you…angels…were the angels after you again?” Dean asked.

            “Sam was worried that since I had chosen ‘Team Free Will’ and most of my brothers and sisters had disowned me, that when he died, I wouldn’t have any family. He knows that the most he can offer is a human lifespan but he wanted to give me that companionship.”

            Cas would be alone when they died. Dean had never thought of that but of course Sam had. Thousands, maybe millions of years alone. Until Cas died and just ceased to be because angels didn’t have souls, they were grace.

            “He is my only connection to you,” Cas continued, “and I missed you. When I was with Sam, I could feel less like you were gone. Sam said that was common for humans.”

            Dean suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here. It was like being at his own funeral and that turned out not to be near as fun as one would imagine. He lifted his empty shot glass and signaled for another shot.

#

            He couldn’t sleep that night. The conversation he’d had with Cas swirled in his head. He should have thought about Cas. Should have thought about Cas being alone. Should have thought about Sam being alone. When he thought about dying, he didn’t feel anything. He looked at the ceiling of the motel room (it was too dark to see it but it wasn’t like he had to, there wasn’t anything to see) and tried to feel something.

            Anything.

            He didn’t really feel anything. He felt like he was going through the motions. RoboDean. Hell, Sam had had more going on when he was soulless. At least when he had no soul he’d cared if he lived or died. Dean? If someone said to him right now that he could just stop his heart, stop breathing, stop bothering, he didn’t know what he’d do.

            Sam had joined the church. Sammy and prayer. Even if Sam didn’t believe in all that Catholic rigmarole, he had faith in something. Dean had no faith in anything. Nothing cared about them.

            He cared about Sammy, right? He tried to find the part of himself that cared about his brother. The part of himself that had thought he would not survive when Sam jumped into the pit at Stull and he knew it was forever. Not just death, but hell, forever.

He let himself think about the one time he never let himself think about.

            He thought about walking into that ghost town. Cold Oak. He thought about Sam turning when he heard his name and the look on Sam’s face, the relief. The last time Sam had ever looked at Dean in just that way, as if Dean hung the moon. He remembered the way Sam had arched away from the knife, the change in his face. The way Sam had gone to his knees and Dean had caught him before he went farther. The weight of Sam, the blood on Dean’s hands, the brief moment he thought Sam was looking at him although Sam was already beyond looking at anything.

            He waited for the rush of pain just coming close to that memory used to bring. He felt empty and tired.

            Maybe this time he’d come back without his soul. Or maybe he’d killed his own soul a long time ago. The fire had gone out. He was dark inside. Without light, without faith, without love.  

            For some reason it made him think about the Darkness Box.  What if the key was to be empty?  He laughed a little at the irony.

#


	16. At The Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning they headed for the edge of the Darkness. The last time they had been here it was a nondescript country road, a narrow line of blacktop that drove into a wall of smoke dark fog. Now it was a well maintained road and as they got close to the edge of the zone of Darkness there was traffic, billboards for tours, survival gear, websites that sold all sorts of camping products, and weirdly enough, services to reverse vasectomies. There were gas stations, a couple of military surplus stores, and a car parts place that advertised overnight delivery on specialty parts.
> 
> Dean pulled the Impala into a McDonalds parking lot and Sam pulled in behind him. Across the street was a grocery and liquor store that sold Darkness souvenirs.
> 
> “You want a t-shirt that says “My Grandma Went to The Darkness and All I Got Was a Lousy T-Shirt?” Dean asked. “A stuffed spider monster with eyes in its legs?”

*   *   *

16

            The box was beautiful, the sigils inlaid in ebony and pale holly. The big question now was the sacrifice. Dean watched his brother run his hands over the sides, checking the joints. It was rare to see Sam like this, hands admiring something physical. Things were just things most of the time for Sam. He ran his fingers over the sigils, checking them against his drawings.

            “It looks good,” Dean said. It was sitting on a table in the library and it fit right in.

            Sam nodded.

            “Have you figured out the unlock?”

            “No,” Sam said.

            “You lying?”

            Sam looked sideways at him, smiling slightly. “I can’t lie to you, remember?” He turned the box over and slid the lid open so he could examine inside. There were three parts. Some way to get the Darkness inside. Maybe a lure? Then the locking spell. That was the easiest. They had that.

Then there was the unlock. Like the Werther Box, that had to be the big one.

            “Does the locking spell require blood?” Dean asked.

            Sam nodded, hair falling forward. He tucked it behind his ear. “Yeah, but just the cut your arm amount.”

            “You’ll let me do the locking spell?” Dean asked.

            Sam nodded again. “Sure. You want to memorize, you can do the spell. It’s just Latin. So two spells and the clockworks and we’re ready.”

            “Yeah, ready,” Dean said. “What aren’t you telling me?”

            “That I’m afraid you’re going to die again and I don’t know if I can keep my promise to Cas this time. Or that we’ll both die and Cas will be alone,” Sam said. “I promised Cas that I’d stay alive as long as possible so he wouldn’t be alone. Do you want to keep asking me questions I don’t want to answer?”

            Dean did, actually, but he also felt like a shit when he did. The clockworks were waiting at the Mailboxes Etc. in Lebanon but he wasn’t going to tell Sam that until he knew exactly what the spell was with the box. “Uh, Cas told me about you promising him to keep alive, Sammy. I…I’m glad you did.”

            Sam forehead creased. Dean could ask him what he was thinking. It was obvious that the wheels and gears of Sammy’s brains were going. Instead Sam must have decided he’d exposed himself to enough questions. He turned and walked down the hall towards his bedroom, leaving Dean alone in the library.

            Cas showed up that evening and Dean made tacos. Sam washed dishes and Cas volunteered to dry. Dean picked a movie and then decided to get a beer.

            “…always been like that,” Sam said quietly.

            “It isn’t fair, Sam,” Cas said.

            “He has reason not to trust me—” Sam said.

            “What’s not fair?” Dean asked.

            “You are lying to Sam,” Cas said. “It’s wrong and I told him he should confront you.”

            Dean stood square, feet apart. “Confront me,” he challenged. He hadn’t been lying to Sam. He wasn’t the guy who snuck around.

            Sam held his hands palm out like, don’t look at me.

            “Spill it Sam, or I’ll ask,” Dean said.

            “You had the mechanism for the Darkness delivered in secret,” Cas said. “You’ve hidden it from Sam.”

            Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Have you been spying on me?” he demanded.

            “You left the pick-up slip on the table,” Sam said. “I thought it was the UPS slip for my t-shirts.” When one of them had ordered something and the other one picked up the slip at UPS, they’d leave it on the table. Dean couldn’t exactly get mad at Sam for that.

            “I didn’t want them in the Bunker until the whole sacrifice thing is ironed out,” Dean said. “Not after the Trials.”

            Muscles jumped in Sam’s jaw. “Fair,” he said.

            Cas looked at Dean, fixing him with an angel stare. “Not fair. Dean has an equal history of lying.”

            “That’s not true!” Dean said. He wasn’t an ex-junkie. He hadn’t screwed some demon bitch.

            “You didn’t tell Sam how much the mark was affecting you, you let him believe you had it under control,” Cas said. “Even though it had been prophesized that you would murder him.”

            Dean felt his face go white and saw Sam’s jaw go slack. “He didn’t…” Sam started.

            “You can’t defend him, Sam. I saved your life when he would have taken a hammer to your skull.”

            “That was because of Metatron,” Sam said.

            It doesn’t change the fact that he lied to you, refused to talk to you about how the Mark was affecting him.”

            “He was under the influence,” Sam said.

            “Stop defending me,” Dean said. “Cas is right. That stuff is on me.” Dean looked at Cas. “But I’m still not going to let Sam come up with some way to kill himself for the greater good.”

            It was like the weirdest Mexican standoff ever. The three of them loaded with hurtful words. All of the past like bullets.

            “Fuck my life,” Dean said. “Who else has family fights about people not getting to die. I just want to drink beer and watch _Raising Arizona_ , okay?”

            “You picked _Raising Arizona_?” Sam said. Sam loved the Cohen brothers with an unreasonable love. Right up there with serial killers. “Marry me,” Sam said. And like that, everybody stood down.

#

            Dean brought the mechanism home. Might as well see if it actually fit into the top of the box, right? Sam sat with his laptop open to his partial translation of _The Book of the Damned_ and watched Dean screw the mechanism into the box. Dean sipped coffee and assembled, nice brass screws to complement the workings. “Just like Ikea,” he said. Sam rolled his eyes. Then Dean slid a mirror behind it—two pieces of glass silvered between with a layer of mercury. Sam had made it. He said it was an old technique for making mirrors but it wasn’t done anymore because mercury was expensive and toxic.

            Dean had asked why they were doing it if it was toxic and then regretted it because _Sam had to tell him_. Alchemy and cinnabar and mercury and purification, doubling the light blah blah blah. Sam gazed off into the distance and all but recited in a monotone. They had both wanted to strangle themselves or maybe Sam just wanted to strangle Dean. At least the result was beautiful.

            Last was a thick piece of glass in front of the mechanism. The lid was about three inches deep when Dean was finished and weighed a lot more than one would expect.

            “I’ve been thinking,” he said when he fitted the last piece of wood to cover the opening where he’d slid in the glass.

            Sam looked at him.

            “I was brought back from heav-” no need to remind Sam of that, “from the _dead_ for this, so symbolically magically speaking wouldn’t the sacrifice would have more _umph_ if it was from me.”

            Sam frowned. “Is ‘umph’ a magical term?”

            “Unit of measure. Like meters and leagues and drams. Umphs. Probably Sanskrit.”

            Sam rolled his eyes again. Then went back to thinking. “The secret to the Werther Box was to do it together. Two people can contribute more units of umph non-fatally.”

            “That’s if you’re talking quantity,” Dean said. “But you keep telling me magic is all about symbols and crap. Back from the dead is hella symbolic.”

            “But your biggest sacrifices, in order, are probably me and Cas, then the Impala, with yourself further down the list,” Sam said. He picked up the bottle of glass cleaner and spritzed the glass top on the box and cleaned it.

            “Don’t do that,” Dean said. “The wood glue hasn’t dried.”

            “I’m not getting it on the wood glue.”

            “You’re saying that I think my car is more important than my life.”

            “No hesitation,” Sam said. “You don’t have much regard for your own life.”

            “I could rebuild Baby.”

            “You’re avoiding the subject.”

            “You want me to sacrifice the Impala?” Dean said.

            Sam shrugged, “I don’t but it’s your choice.”

            “No.”

            Sam smirked. Point made.

            Cas had announced that he would go with them into the Darkness. Angels fought the Darkness by pushing. He would push some into the box. Dean suspected that Cas didn’t want them going into the Darkness without him.

            The Full OJ was repaired, new tires, new lights, new everything that had been stripped from it. Sam said they would have to be a little careful after this, they were burning through his savings. His stipend was only about $12,000 a year.

            “That’s it?” Dean asked.

            “Plus housing and usually food. I ate at the rectory a lot.”

            “They pay priests for shit.”

            “Yes and not ordained, remember?”

            Dean drove the Impala and Sam followed with the Ford Explorer, across Kansas and down through the Texas panhandle. Perrytown, Texas used to be a small town. Now it was a Darkness bordertown. People who used to live in nearby New Mexico who had made it out of the Darkness had settled there. People who for whatever reason were going into the Darkness could find equipment there. The town had been dwindling and now it was bustling but it had gotten harder. There were more men, more bars.

            The last time they had been here, five years ago, the motel parking lot had been full of cars with government license plates. Now it was strange vehicles that looked like something out of a tornado chaser reality show. Half-assed armor and spot lights everywhere. The Full OJ was nothing.

            Dean looked around, half-admiring and half-appalled. “What is this?” he asked.

            Sam was stretching, hands in the small of his back. “There’s a television show,” he said. “I think it’s really popular. Cas has watched it.”

            Okaaaaay. “Cas watches television?” he asked.

            “Yeah,” Sam said. “When I had to go to Georgetown he watched a lot of cable. I’ll get a room.”

           The next morning they headed for the edge of the Darkness. The last time they had been here it was a nondescript country road, a narrow line of blacktop that drove into a wall of smoke dark fog. Now it was a well maintained road and as they got close to the edge of the zone of Darkness there was traffic, billboards for tours, survival gear, websites that sold all sorts of camping products, and weirdly enough, services to reverse vasectomies. There were gas stations, a couple of military surplus stores, and a car parts place that advertised overnight delivery on specialty parts.

            Dean pulled the Impala into a McDonalds parking lot and Sam pulled in behind him. Across the street was a grocery and liquor store that sold Darkness souvenirs.

            “You want a t-shirt that says “My Grandma Went to The Darkness and All I Got Was a Lousy T-Shirt?” Dean asked. “A stuffed spider monster with eyes in its legs?”

            Sam looked bemused. “No. You want coffee?”

            “Yeah, get me a large. Do they have Darkness monsters in zoos?”

            “They die and dissolve into goo as soon as they leave the zone,” Sam said. “There’s no DNA in the goo.”

            At the edge of the Darkness itself was a place like a border station. They parked in the parking lot and walked into a building with all the personality of a DMV. There were queue lines and windows with numbers over them. Right now there were two of six windows open and no one in line. A Latino guy in a Homeland Security uniform said, “Can I help you?”

            “Yeah,” Dean said, “What do we have to do to go into the, ah, zone?”

            The guy slid a sheet of paper in front of both of them and pointed to a counter. “I’ll need a government issued photo ID,” he said. “Driver’s license, state ID, passport.”

            They took the papers over to the counter and filled them out. The papers were waivers stating that they knew that although the area they were entering was sovereign territory of the United States of America and they were still subject to all laws and regulations, the government could not protect them nor render them the aid normally accorded to citizens on native soil and they were proceeding at their own risk.

            “Just a normal day on the job,” Dean murmured.

            Sam snorted.

            They handed in their papers and showed their ‘government issued’ IDs. They were handed a sticker for the Full OJ. “Put this on the outside of your vehicle in what would be the vicinity of the driver’s side of the windshield if you don’t have a windshield,” the Homeland Security guy said. “Have you ever been in the zone before?”

            “Yeah,” Dean said. “A couple of times.”

            “Okay, then you know the drill. Stay on the road, don’t go far, don’t get out of your vehicle. The zone blocks all signals so there’s no cell service or wireless. We can’t come and get you if your vehicle breaks down but your best bet is to sit tight and hope someone comes by. You got water?”

            “Yeah,” Dean said. “We’re good.”

            The Homeland Security guy smiled, “Okay guys, stay safe.”

            They were getting in the Full OJ when a long, tracked vehicle pulled into the parking lot. It had once been a bus but now it was armored. It said “TOUR THE ZONE!” on the side in that glow in the dark green usually reserved for aliens. Underneath in smaller letters it said “Safe” and “Air Conditioned”. There were two 25 mm M242 Bushmaster autocannons mounted next to spotlights in turrets on the roof. People spilled out dressed in jeans and bright t-shirts.

            “Maybe we’re in the wrong business,” Dean said.

            “You just want to play with those machine guns,” Sam said. “In a week you’d turn them on the customers.”

            “Good point,” Dean said.

#


	17. Capturing Darkness

*  *  *

17

            They were waved through a gate and drove a couple of hundred yards to the wall of dark. Once past the gate they left the whole circus behind and they were in country. The grass was dry. Sam said, “Cas, we’re at the edge. Whenever you want to—”

            “Hello, Sam. Hello, Dean,” Cas said from the back seat.

            Sam started.

            “Hi Cas,” Dean said. Dean had seen the edge of the Darkness before but it was always unnatural. It should have been roiling like smoke or shifting like fog but it was just there. “We go in,” Dean said. “We stop, we open the box, Cas does his thing, I do my lock thing, we leave. Everybody got it?”

            “Yes,” said Cas.

            “Got it,” said Sam.

            “You haven’t got any unexpected plans, right?” Dean said to Sam. “No self-sacrifice you haven’t mentioned?”

            Sam shook his head. “The locking spell is all you.”

            No repeat of The Trials. Dean was supposed to have taken on The Trials but Sam ended up killing the Black Dog and then going kamikaze. Wasn’t happening again.

            Driving into the Darkness was a little like going into a car wash. They edged forward and the black rolled over the car. Dean hit the lights. The Ford Explorer, the Full OJ, had a double rack of lights on the roof, one pointed forward and one back. It had ground effect lights. It had racks of lights on the side. It had spotlights mounted on both driver and passenger side doors. It had a spotlight mounted inside behind the windshield. They had three lasers (new.) They had two new ultraviolet flashlights to try out.

            They could see about twelve feet in front of them and about three feet to either side. Dean thought about the tour bus and wonders how much it cost to take that tour. What did they see? Maybe the tour threw steaks out to draw monsters.

            “I’ve never been in the Darkness before,” Cas said.

            “Really,” Sam said.

            “I’ve only fought it from the outside.”

            “What’s it like?” Sam asked.

            “I feel blind,” Cas said. Dean started to say _no shit_ , but Cas continued, “All of my angelic senses are closed off. It’s like being human again. I forget how little you can sense. You can’t even see what is behind you.”

            Dean looked at Sam whose face said, _yeah, tact isn’t his strong suit_.

            “How far are you going to drive?” Sam asked.

            “About ten minutes and then I’ll pull off the road.”

#

            Dean pulled off into the dead grass. It crumbled to dust under the tires. When they opened the doors there was no wind. He smelled dust. They had angel blades and Sam had a shotgun. Sam was going to stand guard. The spell was complicated.

            Dean put the box down. To prepare he had it in a circle of light from the passenger side spotlight. He opened the lid. Around the box in a semi circle he put candles.

            There was not a whisper of sound. No wind, no insects. No hum of distant traffic. Dean could hear his own breath. From years of firing guns without ear protection he always had a slight ringing in his ears but he only ever noticed it in the bunker and then only if he was in a storage room where the ventilation was unusually quiet. He could hear it now. 

            Faith, love, and light.  That was the key he was setting to the unlock.  Either a person empty of those things, or someone who would sacrifice those things could open the box.  Unlike Sammy, he had no faith.  He was empty inside, Famine had said so and he had known it that night in Wichita.  

            This metaphor bullshit.  Why was he thinking now it was all going to come back to bite their asses.

            “Ready,” he said quietly.

            Sam moved the spotlight sideways so the box was out of the circle of brightness.

            “It’s harder than I expected,” Cas said. “I can push against the Darkness, but I don’t know where the empty box is.”

            “Put the light at the edge of the box,” Dean said.

            Sam moved the light so the halo of it just touched the edge.

            “That’s good,” Cas said. He didn’t look like he was doing anything, just standing there. He didn’t even close his eyes.

            Sam looked out into the Darkness, anxious. For lack of anything else to do, so did Dean.

            It felt as if they were inside. In a basement or something. Dean thought about the spell he was about to do. About the tour bus. Finally after a couple of minutes, Cas said, “It’s in there.”

            Dean lunged and closed the lid. He heard it snap shut in the blackness. Sam moved the spotlight back so he could light the semicircle of candles. He put the copper bowl in front of him and threw in the first of the herbs. “ _Et erunt lenticulam cavea_ ,” Dean said.

            The spell was complicated. He had memorized it, and had it written down. He and Sam had separated all the ingredients like it was a cooking show so he could just throw them in as he needed to.

            “I need the spotlight,” Sam said.

            Dean nodded, still chanting. “ _Verba mea dicendo sic catenas ..._ ” He glanced up and almost lost his place. The spotlight got just the edge of something very large and pink and segmented snaking past. Sam fired the shotgun and it disappeared. Cas shifted his angel sword.

            Dean lit the contents of the bowl on fire and there was a strong, clean astringent smell. Something in the darkness reacted, hissed, but it was a sound so weirdly high it was almost electronic. Sam fired again and Dean barely heard the screech. It was in dog whistle territory, almost ultrasonic, but it must have been ‘loud’ because his back teeth hurt. Sam cocked the shotgun.

            “ _Luce teneri et sanguinis Domini_.” The candles flared so high and bright that Dean could see the box again and beyond it, eyes. Cas lunged across the candles with the angel sword and Sam swung the light around. Cas’ sword plunged into it’s head and it yanked him over the box as it reared. It was the pink thing and it was like an earthworm. A smell like vinegar and shit made Dean cough.

            Cas caught his balance and pulled out his sword. Sam yelled, “DOWN,” and fired both barrels into it’s head. It thumped and thrashed, oozing clear liquid.

            Cas rolled to his feet and yelled, “SAM!” He lept passed Dean. Something was rumbling on the road.

            Dean was busy drawing a silver blade across his hand. Eyes on the prize. Finish and get out of here. He could hear commotion.

            _“Clavem ad hoc caritas. Clavem ad hoc leve. Clavem ad hoc fides est._ ”

            The candles grew so bright they were almost blinding. The gears moved on the top of the box and the mirror turned red. Cinnabar.

            “It’s locked!” Dean yelled. He grabbed the box and tried to stand up but it was heavier than expected and he stumbled. He managed to lift it on the second try and turned and threw it in the back seat.

            Sam and Cas were fighting monsters. Another pink thing reared up cobra like, three feet over Sam, spitting at him and he lunged up with his angel blade, spearing it underneath it’s jaw. His jacket was smoking where the spit had hit. Cas held off a pale pasty spider the size of a dog. It’s legs arched high that its body and it had three black eyes in a row and a circle of tiny red ones like a little crown. It didn’t have a neck so it pivoted its whole body when it feinted. It had what should have been its front legs in the air—they shaded to leathery brown skin ending in human hands with almost black nails. In the palms of the hands were mouths. As Sam staggered back from the dying, thrashing giant pink worm, one of those hands snaked out and grabed him and bit.

            Dean drove the angel blade through the circle of red eyes on top of its head.

            Then the whole area was flooded with light and there were monsters everywhere. A couple more of the pink worm things and some spiders. Some things that looked like albino cockroaches but were the size of shoeboxes. Tall, black, stick-like creatures that had thorns and moved like clothespins. They were truly screwed.

            Dean glanced behind him to see the tour bus. The the autocannons opened up and the sound was deafening. They had tracers, probably four to one, but the autocannons put out so much that it looked like a solid stream of light chewing up everything in front of them. Monsters popped and splintered. Dean could feel the sound in his teeth. He wanted to shoot one so bad.

            At least, Dean thought, the tourists got their money’s worth.

#


	18. Labyrinth Spiders & Acid Worms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean pulled the laptop away and scanned the page. Ther were descriptions and pictures. “Aranearum labyrinthum? The Labyrinth Spider? Who names these things?” At the last moment he thought to add, “Cas?” Sam, who had opened his mouth to stutter through a answer, shot him a grateful look. There was a list of symptoms and treatments. “Sam, we’ve gotta get you real care. This is bad.”
> 
> “N-n-not f-f-fatal, right?” Sam said.
> 
> “Muscle spasms severe enough to cause fractures.”
> 
> Sam nodded. “Okay. T-t-treatment.”

*   *   *

18

            By the time they got back to the Impala, it was clear that Sam wasn’t going to be able to drive the Explorer home. Dean got his jacket off of him and looked at his upper arm. The bite was pretty horrible looking, already inflamed and red. “S-s-some kind of v-v-venom,” Sam said. He was shaking, but seemed clear-headed. He pulled over his laptop with one hand and found a wiki of creatures of the Darkness.

            Cas put two fingers to Sam’s forehead again. He had been trying since they got in the car. He shook his head, he couldn’t heal a Darkness whammy.

            Dean pulled the laptop away and scanned the page. Ther were descriptions and pictures. “ _Aranearum labyrinthum_? The Labyrinth Spider? Who names these things?” At the last moment he thought to add, “Cas?” Sam, who had opened his mouth to stutter through a answer, shot him a grateful look. There was a list of symptoms and treatments. “Sam, we’ve gotta get you real care. This is bad.”

            “N-n-not f-f-fatal, right?” Sam said.

            “Muscle spasms severe enough to cause fractures.”

            Sam nodded. “Okay. T-t-treatment.”

            Perrytown, Texas used to be too small for more than an urgent care but now it had a center specializing in zone injuries. It wasn’t big but it had an outsized trauma unit. The ER was very blasé about Sam walking in shaking like a boat sail in a high wind.   
            “Can you describe what attacked you?”

            “He was bit by a Labyrinth Spider while stabbing an Acid Worm through the jaw,” Dean said. It felt incredibly weird to say that; he was so used to lying. Mauled by a bear or hit by a car, never a supernatural animal. The woman in scrubs doing intake just nodded. She has the face of someone who had spent a lot of time in the sun. Dean suspected she had animals. Dogs and horses. “How long ago,” she said.

            “Less than an hour,” Dean said.

            “Good,” she said. “Insurance?”

            Sam pulled out his wallet one handed and handed it to Dean. Dean fished through it and found an insurance card for Samuel Winchester. He looked at Sam, frowning. Sam nodded. Dean glanced again and realized it was through Georgetown University. He handed it to the woman. “He’s a Jesuit,” he said.

            She looked up at Sam. “Oh, Father,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

            Sam opened his mouth to stutter out something that was certainly either ‘not a priest’ or ‘not ordained’ and Dean gave him a look.

            “He’s part of a committee that is studying the zone.” Dean gave her his best smile. “Just so you know he’s not some moron tourist who ignored advice and got out of the truck.”

            She nodded at Dean, smile lines crinkling at the corner of her eyes. “Even the professionals get in trouble in there. Father, we’re going to get you on an IV of muscle relaxers and pain killers right away. It will take a couple of days to ride this out but we’ll keep you comfortable.”

            She called back and Sam was led to the back right away, Dean and Cas trailing along. Sam managed a give Dean a wildly shaking middle finger out of the nurse’s line of sight.

            Cas said, “Sam is not actually a priest.”

            “But he is part of the Jesuit order. He does study the Darkness. If I didn’t correct her about assuming he’s a priest and it gets him pain medication faster, is that so bad?”

            “I think Sam is rather angry,” Cas said.

            “Wait,” Dean said.

            They closed the curtain for the bay and a nurse helped Sam change since he was shaking so hard he was having trouble standing. A doctor came and hovered. Sam’s injured arm was cramping hard enough that he couldn’t straighten it out anymore. The bicep bulged. The nurse had trouble getting the IV in his other arm because he couldn’t relax the muscles.

            “We’re going to hit you pretty hard with some muscle relaxers, Father Winchester,” the doctor said.

            “S-sam,” Sam bit off.

            “You’re going to feel a burn because we want to get a pretty large dose in you pretty fast. You’ll feel dizzy as well. Don’t worry, if you feel sleepy and want to just sleep—”

            While the doctor was talking, Dean could see the drugs hit. It was like watching a junkie get heroin. Sam was rigid, trying not to admit that it hurt, trying to keep on top of it all, being the good patient, and irritated as fuck at Dean. And then he was happy Sammy.

            “—just let yourself,” the doctor finished. “We’ll wait a few minutes and then check your pain level, okay?”

            “Yeah,” Sam said. He breathed for a minute then slowly sank back. His eyelids slip to half-closed. His forehead smoothed.

            “Hey Sammy,” Dean said. “Better?”

            Sam looked at him for a moment. He was still shaking slightly but more important it seemed like it was taking some time for his brain to register. “Yeah, Dean,” he said. “Better.”

            “Cas thought you might be a little pissed at me.”

            Sam frowned, trying to figure it out, then nodded. “You shouldn’t do stuff like that.”

            “Got you good stuff, fast.”

            Sam made a goofy little huffy laugh noise. “Yeah.”

            Dean quirked an eyebrow at Cas. See?

            Cas squinted at Dean in a way that suggested he might not entirely approve.

#

            Dean slept in a chair. It was sort of a recliner and he’d slept in worse. He’d sleep in a motel the next night but they’d all been booked and while the Impala was a little more comfortable, it was fine.

            He was pretty sound asleep when he woke to Sam saying hoarsely, “Cas? Castiel?”

            The room was dim but Cas was cleanly silhouetted standing at the window. “Yes, Sam?”

            “Where are we?” Sam sounded disoriented. Drugged to the gills.

            “Perrysville, Texas,” Cas answered. Which was good because Dean couldn’t for the life of him have answered more coherently than ‘hospital.’ The answer sounded as if it had satisfied Sam so Dean let himself drift back into sleep.

            Then Sam said, “I dreamed that Dean was alive.”

            Dean was completely awake. “I’m here,” he said. He reached over, desperate, and grabbed for his brother, touching shoulder, hair.

            “Dean?” Sam said.

            Dean let his hands search his brother’s face, felt Sam’s long fingers on his wrist. “I’m right here. You were hurt but you’re okay.”

            “You were…” Clumsy long fingers caught his eye and his nose in the dark. Drugs and fine trembling from the venom made his brother clumsy but he let Sam find him in the dim light and try to trace his face. “I…”

            “Shhhh, shhhh,” Dean said. “I’m here. I’m really here. I’m alive. Everything is fine. You’re fine. Are you hurting?”

            “Kind of,” Sam said. “I don’t know…”

            “I’ll get the nurse,” Cas said.

            Dean could barely make his brother’s face, just a pale shape in the dark. “I’m here,” he murmured, feeling the muscle tremor in Sam’s hands and arms. “I’m right here with you, you’re not alone any more,” he whispered, over and over again.

#

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my Latin is Google translate Latin.


	19. Sympathy For the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heaven’s elevator had been moved. Angels could fly directly there again but the door still existed, apparently it was sometimes convenient. Cas touched Sam and Dean’s forehead and they were in a suburb Chicago in an older part of town, far from the Gold Coast and the Loop. It was mostly manufacturing and office buildings. Despite the late spring warmth the wind was whipping off the lake and it was chilly. Sam was carrying the box.
> 
> Cas led them into an old, pale stone high rise that felt very forties. Inside was a young trim man with light eyes sitting at a reception desk and wearing a phone headset. The young man saw them and stood up, “Castiel?” he said, “Are these the Winchesters? I don’t think—”
> 
> “Michael has given the okay,” Cas said. “Check with Heaven, we’ll wait.”
> 
> The angel sat down and picked up the phone.
> 
> Dean looked at Sam, ready for a shared, ‘they use phones now?’ but Sam was still mostly avoiding looking at him so Dean just went back to watching the angel on the celestial hotline. “Yes,” the angel said into the phone, “with an elaborate looking device.”
> 
> There was a pause. “I’m on hold,” the angel said apologetically.

*   *   *

19

            “Are you hurting?”

            Sam put Dean’s coffee down on the kitchen table in the Bunker. He clearly hated Dean’s question. “A little bit of muscle ache but I don’t want to take a muscle relaxer. They make me a little loopy.”

            "That's bad?” Dean asked.

            Sam’s face was a priceless study in annoyance. He took his own mug and walked into the library and studied the Darkness Box. Dean had made the key to the box a triple key, whoever opened it had to be empty of love, light, and faith. On the way back from Texas, Sam had finally asked him.

            It was Castiel who had gone ballistic. “Dean! Why would you do that!”

            “You remember Famine?” Dean said.

            “Of course I remember Famine,” Cas said.

            Dean shrugged. “There you go. I’m pretty much dead inside. So what is there left for me to sacrifice?” What Dean had been thinking was that he didn’t really have much of any of those things. He figured he could probably waltz right in and open the box.

            “This is a terrible mistake,” Cas said. “Sam,” the angel appealed to his brother.

            Sam had shrugged.

            “You don’t think this is a good idea, do you?”

            “It doesn’t make any difference what I think,” Sam said, his voice flatter than Kansas. “It’s too late. It’s done.”

            Dean had given Castiel a smirk.

            Sam had barely looked at Dean since.

#

            Michael looked like their Dad when he was young, his face smooth and his eyes young. It’s way too reminiscent of his vision.

            “Where did you get that meatsuit?” Dean asked.

            “I’m an archangel,” Michael said. Dean wondered if Michael somehow reconstituted John Winchester’s ashes or searched the world to find a doppleganger or just Play-Dohed one up. He decided he didn’t want to know. “Castiel said that it was time we talked.”

            Sam heaved the Darkness Box onto a picnic table. They were meeting at a roadside park. There were trees and tables, each with their own grill and the grass around them worn to dirt by families. Beyond was a large clear area where a large group of people wearing blue shirts that all said “Radigan Family Reunion” on them were playing softball.

            “You can’t defeat the Darkness,” Dean said.

            “We have before,” Michael said.

            “Yeah, but that’s when Luci would bring it,” Dean said. “This time he won’t play, will he?”

            Something flashed in Michael’s eyes. “What is that?” he gestured towards the box.

            “It’s a box of Darkness,” Sam said.

            Michael seemed completely caught off guard.

            “We need to take it to Heaven,” Dean said. “Lucifer won’t let Heaven be destroyed. If he thinks that the Darkness is invading Heaven—”

            Michael took a couple of steps forward and was suddenly six inches from Dean’s face. “What makes you think that you should be hatching plots to stop this?”

            “We released it, it’s our job—”

            “You released it all right,” Michael said, “and now Heaven has to clean it up. We’d be able to do a much better job if you weren’t responsible for the death of so many of us.”

            Anger was an emotion that Dean could still feel easily. Sometimes he thought it was the only emotion he had left. It blazed in him now. “Oh, right, you have spent generations fucking up our lives and you’re pissed because we didn’t fall in line? What about that heart to heart we had about swords and making things?”

            Michael arched an eyebrow, “What are you talking about, Dean?”

            “Dean had a vision,” Castiel said. “The being in the vision appeared in the guise of his father. You know about Sam’s visions.”

            Michael took a step back and looked quizzically at Cas. “Castiel, you don’t believe really…”

            “I have been with Sam when he was taken by a vision,” Cas said. “I have no doubt. Now I don’t have any doubt about Dean, either.”

            The softball cracked off the bat and some of the Radigan clan cheered. Such a normal day, people having a normal Kansas picnic. Probably fried chicken and burgers and potato salad. Doritos. “Doubt about what?” Dean said.

            “The person in your vision wasn’t Michael,” Sam said. “It was God.”

            “He brought back Dean to fight the Darkness,” Cas said.

            Michael shook his head. “Not by bringing the Darkness to Heaven.”

            “You need Lucifer,” Dean said. “He’s the light bringer and that means something, right? Like I was supposed to be your sword. He’s supposed to do something.”

            “Bring God’s light,” Michael said softly. It was confirmation. Luci was God’s vessel, his sword. “But he feels so betrayed. Millennia in the Cage and then…”

            “To give up everything, be possessed by God,” Sam said. “It must be like being obliterated.”

            Everyone looked at Sam standing with his hands resting lightly on the box.

            Sam gave one of his funny quick half smiles. “Sympathy for the devil,” he said.

#

            Heaven’s elevator had been moved. Angels could fly directly there again but the door still existed, apparently it was sometimes convenient. Cas touched Sam and Dean’s forehead and they were in a suburb Chicago in an older part of town, far from the Gold Coast and the Loop. It was mostly manufacturing and office buildings.   Despite the late spring warmth the wind was whipping off the lake and it was chilly. Sam was carrying the box.

            Cas led them into an old, pale stone high rise that felt very forties. Inside was a young trim man with light eyes sitting at a reception desk and wearing a phone headset. Angels seemed to be particularly drawn to white vessels with pale eyes. Hannah and Raphael excepted. The young man saw them and stood up, “Castiel?” he said, “Are these the Winchesters? I don’t think—”

            “Michael has given the okay,” Cas said. “Check with Heaven, we’ll wait.”

            The angel sat down and picked up the phone.

            Dean looked at Sam, ready for a shared, ‘they use phones now?’ but Sam was still mostly avoiding looking at him so Dean just went back to watching the angel on the celestial hotline. “Yes,” the angel said into the phone, “with an elaborate looking device.”

            There was a pause. “I’m on hold,” the angel said apologetically.

            The tile floor of the lobby looked worn. Sam rested the box on the edge of the high reception desk. The angel looked at it, worried. Castiel stared unblinkingly at the angel. Sam looked at the box.

            Dean wished he had a drink. Wished this was over. He was beginning to suspect that the faith hope and charity thing (okay, faith, charity/love and light) was not as clever as he thought. It it had seemed brilliant the night he thought of it. Sacrifice light because there was darkness inside so that was symbolic and really he didn’t feel like he had any light inside him. No faith at all in much of anything, most days he was just going through the motions, and love? He was angry at everything. Look what he did to Sam, to Cas. Couldn’t really much call that love.

            The lobby reception angel nodded, “Okay, thank you.” He looked at them. “Yes, Castiel, you’ve all been cleared.” He looked at the box but clearly knew better than to ask questions. Sam heaved it off the reception desk.

            The elevators were fairly small, meant to only hold about four people. The buttons were old. “Third floor,” Cas said.

            “For the trinity?” Sam asked.

            Cas said, “Yes. And the rent was good.”

            The elevator lurched when it started. The third floor smelled musty. The signs by the doors said that the offices were insurance agents and small corporations with names like Dijtacorp. One said Nutrilife. At the end of the hall was a door with no sign outside. The door was unlocked and inside was just an office with a desk and chair and a bored looking secretary-type with red hair and, wait for it, blue eyes. And a sandbox.

            “You kept the sandbox?” Dean said.

            “We lose our deposit if we damage the floor,” the secretary said. She was wearing a pencil skirt and using an emery board on her nails. She had nice legs. Did angels have a sense of irony? Cas didn’t.

            They stepped into the sandbox and were in the offices of heaven.

            Dean wondered where the best place was to unleash a war was. “Where do you want us to go with,” he gestured towards Sam and the box.

            Cas led them to, of all things, a conference room.

            “Really?” Dean said.

            “These are not real spaces,” Cas said. “These are approximations for your perception. What I perceive in my vessel and what I perceive with angelic senses are very difference. The room is actually very large.”

            Sam put the box on the conference table. “Now what?” he said.

            Dean said, “I open it.”

            He felt a juddering sense of anxiety but pushed it aside.

            “How?” Sam said.

            Dean laughed, not bothering to hide his bitterness. “I figure I’ve got no faith, I feel nothing but dark inside, and I’m not exactly a fountain of loving kindness. I’ve got none of it inside me so I’ll just open it.”

            Sam and Cas exchanged looks. Dean put his hands on the box and lifted.

            It didn’t open.

            “My my my,” said a mild voice. “What’s in the box?” Behind them, slouching against the wall, was Ilya/Lucifer. Then they weren’t in a conference room anymore.

#

 

 


	20. The Light Bringer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” Lucifer looked thoughtful, “if that’s the case, why do you turn to him?”
> 
> Why did Soulless turn to him? Dean had figured it was just to fit in. Or habit because he’d just sort of started telling Soulless what to do and Sammy had always kind of listened to him. But really, without a soul, Sam did a lot things different—he had a sh*t ton of sex, ate like a horse, didn’t sleep.
> 
> Lucifer was looking at Soulless who had dropped his head so his hair came forward a bit. Like Sam when he was younger. Sam had pretty much stopped hiding behind his hair when he stopped wearing bangs. Now he took his hits.
> 
> “Because,” Sam said after a long pause, “he’s like a compass. It’s all chaos but he, he always points in the same direction. He’s good and I can remember that that’s the direction I want. Without direction there’s no point, it’s just all pain. Being alive, being dead, it all sucks.”
> 
> Lucifer turned to Dean like a magician unveiling a trick. “He has faith in you.”
> 
> Soulless actually laughed. “Well f**k my life.”

*   *   *

            “Luci,” Dean said, “the angelic draft dodger.”

            It was just the three of them; Lucifer, Sam, and Dean. Dean felt as if he was in one of those vague gray photography backdrops but Sam was clearly seeing something, acting as if he was someplace. He was not looking at Lucifer but rather looking up, way, way up. As if, Dean realized, Lucifer were a thousand feet tall.           

            “Sam,” Dean said. “SAM!”

            “He can’t hear you,” Lucifer said casually. He had that same distant, slightly amused look he’d had when he was wearing Sam in a white suit although this time he was Ilya in his black engineer boots, black pants and tank top, all geared up for a night in the clubs of Berlin. “Michael said that the Winchesters were in Heaven,” Lucifer said. “I came to see why.”

            Sam was slowly _sagging_.

            “Why are you here?” Lucifer asked.          

            Dean knew if he told Lucifer that the box was full of Darkness, he’d just whisk it somewhere like, maybe, a moon of Jupiter and everything would be over.

            Sam collapsed, seated on the ground. He swallowed and dug his thumb into the palm of his hand. There was nothing there but a scar.

            “Your brother thinks he’s back in the Cage. I never really tortured him, you know, not the way you think of torture. Humans just aren’t that interesting and Michael and I had a lot to catch up on. How long do you want him to stay like that?”

            “What do you want?” Dean growled.

            “Tell me what’s in the box?”

            “It’s not for you,” Dean said. Reverse psychology. Worked on Sam when he was, like, five and didn’t want to eat something.

            “Dean, Dean, Dean. Do you want to see what your brother sees?” the Morningstar asked.

            _The world is black and yet he can ‘see’ and towering above him is something vast and beautiful. The light from it is not just visible light because he closes his eyes and he can still see it as if it is imprinting on his retinas, his nerves. It is ceaseless and complex, a fractal, biological, mechanism, an engine of physics like something in a star. But it/they/him/her is existing in ways that Dean comprehends/sees/feels and then that understanding instantly collapses. The space around him is the same way. Dimensions opening, time doing things that as soon as he perceives them he can’t hold onto them and he perceives and falls through/perceives and falls through/perceives and falls through/perceives his mind breaks and breaks and breaks_

            Lucifer was idly scratching the back of his neck.

            Dean felt the onset of the mother of all panic attacks.

            “The Cage is an angel space,” Lucifer said. He studied his nails. “Non-Euclidean. Not meant for humans.”

            “Stop it,” Dean said but his mouth was so dry almost nothing came out. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t breath.

            Sammy stared into a void, his fox-tilted eyes open and empty.

            “Tell me about the box,” Lucifer said.

            The vision of the Cage was still with him and his heart was pounding. Dean couldn’t think, didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t breathe. Don’t say it’s the Darkness. Don’t say it’s the Darkness. “It’s a lock spell.”

            The Ukrainian boy’s body sighed. He turned to Sam and Sam blinked, leaned forward and put both hands against the non-descript gray floor.

            “Sam,” Dean said.

            Sam looked up and locked on Dean. For a moment Dean could try to calm himself by the old in one two three out one two three, looking at Sam but then Lucifer took a few steps, crouched in front of his brother. “Hello, Sam.”

            Sam said nothing, just looked at the angel.

            “I’ve missed you,” Lucifer said. He sounded sad.

            “I heard you singing,” Sam said, his voice like sandpaper. “Singing for your father.”

            Lucifer cocked his head. Dean had never seen him do the angel head-cock. “Did you?”

            “Yes,” Sam said, his voice airless.

            Lucifer reached for Sam’s chin, tilted his face up. Ilya’s hands were small, although his fingers, like Sam’s, were long. Sam was so much bigger than Ilya and yet the Morningstar was so much stronger, more powerful. For a moment Dean thought he would kiss Sam.

            “Don’t touch me,” Sam said, although he didn’t move. Dean’s heart was hammering. In one two three, out one two three. Breathe, motherfucker, he thought to himself.

            Lucifer sighed again. “Who can open the box?”

            “Dean can,” Sam said. “He just has to sacrifice someone he loves.”

            “NO!” Dean said and his heart was hammering so hard he started to see spots. “That’s not true. I made the unlock.” He tried to move forward but he couldn’t. “Someone who has sacrificed love, faith, and light can open the box. Someone empty! Someone who can’t feel anything anymore!”

            Lucifer looked over his shoulder. He smiled and it was frightening. He let go of Sam’s chin and stood. “Whatever made you think you couldn’t feel?”

            “Famine,” Dean said. “Famine said I was dead inside.” He’d screwed up. He knew it. Castiel and Sam were right. He’d fucked them all.

            Sam was shaking his head.

            “Dean,” Lucifer said, “tell me you’re not so stupid.” He looked at Sam. “I’m surprised you let this happen.”

            “I wasn’t asked,” Sam whispered.

            “Famine said—” Dean said. The feeling in his stomach…Lucifer was the father of lies, he reminded himself. He was hyperventilating. He had to get a grip on himself. He couldn’t get the Cage out of his head, couldn’t get past the feeling of time and reality twisting and his mind breaking over and over.

            “Famine thinks feeling is want. All he can feel is want. Need. Greed.” Lucifer walked over to Dean and looked up at him. “Love isn’t just want. Sometimes it is. When you brought your brother back at Cold Oak, that was love as greed. For all you knew, Sam was in heaven. You brought him back because you wanted him. Famine would recognize that. But when you gave him your support at Stull, when you helped him defeat me, that was love without greed. Famine couldn’t feel that. You aren’t empty, Dean.”

            Fuck. Oh fuck. What had he done.

            “We know someone who doesn’t feel love, don’t we,” Lucifer continued. He walked back to Sam. “Sit up, please,” he said.

            Sam sat up on his heels.

            Lucifer reached into Sam’s chest and Sam screamed. He writhed around Lucifer’s arm like a moth on a pin. Lucifer’s face was calm while Sam kept jerking and screaming and then Lucifer pulled out Sam’s soul and Sam fell forward on his hands and knees again, panting hard.

            Dean wouldn’t have moved even if he could. He’d seen souls before. He’d seen Bobby’s soul. He’d seen souls stored in jars, stored for Abaddon’s army. He had briefly seen the light of Sam’s soul when Death took it from his bag and put it in Sam’s body. But he’d never just seen Sam’s soul. It was bright. Brighter than any soul he’d ever seen before. He’d remembered that from when Death took it out but seeing it now, it was astonishing.

            Somehow, looking at in in the long minute they waited while Sam gasped for breath, Dean felt himself getting some grip on himself.

            And Sam, heaving in air. He looked from his brother to the swirling, brilliant thing in Lucifer’s grasp to his brother to his brother’s soul. Sam raised his head. Dean was expecting it but it was still a shock. He knew that face. He knew when his brother was soulless.

            “What do you love?” Lucifer asked his Soulless brother.

            “Don’t know how,” Sam said, looking up at the thing swirling in Lucifer’s hands. He sat up and then stood. He was steady on his feet. He looked afraid, but not terrified. Soulless never seemed to get really scared of much of anything except Death putting his soul back.

            “Do you have faith in God?” Lucifer continued.

            Sam snorted. “I don’t have a soul. God doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me.”

            “You know what’s next,” Lucifer said. “I’m sorry.”

            Sam gave Dean a look. “You’re a dick, you know it?”

            “Wait, what’s next?” Dean asked.

            “Do you want to touch it first?” Lucifer said and held out the soul.

            Soulless looked at it and Dean saw things cross his face. Emotions that maybe shouldn’t be there? He had never understood the soulless version of his brother. Then Soulless put his hand out and touched his body’s soul. His eyebrows came together. “I can feel them.”

            “What,” Dean snapped. “Clue a guy in?”

            “The scars,” Lucifer said.

            “It’s ruined,” Sam said. “It’s nothing but scars.” His face twisted in disgust and he drew his hand back. “Okay. Can you make it not hurt?”

            Lucifer shrugged. “All right.” He put one hand up and covered Sam’s eyes. “No light.”

            “NO!” Dean yelled.

            When Lucifer took his hand away, Sam’s eyes were white, without pupil or iris. He blinked and shook his head like a dog. He looked more put out than anything, as if being made blind was an annoyance.

            “I’ll gut you!” Dean shouted. “I don’t care what it takes! I’ve killed an archangel before and I’ll kill you too!” He would. He didn’t care how.

            Sam held his hands out for the box and suddenly it was there, in front of him on a high little table. He searched the top, ran his fingers along the edges and down until he found the latch. “I’ll open it if you’ll give me back my sight when it’s opened.”

            “I don’t think you’re in a position to bargain.”

            Sam’s face turned towards the archangel he couldn’t see and he smiled a little. “You want what’s in here? Remember, I’ve got no soul, worst you can do is kill me and then I’m dead. Gone. And you don’t get inside.” He stroked his hand across the top of the mercury mirrored surface and it swirled as if following his touch. Sam knew that Lucifer wouldn’t give him anything once he found out what was inside. Why was he even saying that? Because Lucifer would expect him to. Jesus but the bastard was cold.

            Lucifer laughed. “Sam, I’d say you never fail to astonish me but honestly, that’s not true. Your soulless self however is quite a revelation. Almost makes me want a pet.”

            Sam smiled that creepy smile that meant he was actually pleased. “I bite,” he said simply.

            “ _Zvychayno_. I’ll bet you do. All right. I’ll give you back your sight.”

            Sam ran blind spidery fingers across the latch then pulled it. Dean couldn’t help staring at Sam’s white eyes. He felt like he should look away but crap, Sam couldn’t see he was staring and Lucifer didn’t care. Sam’s eyebrows knit as he thought. It gave but did not open.

            Sam turned his blind eyes towards his brother, “Dean?” he asked.

            What the hell?

            “I should have known,” Lucifer said. “Winchesters.”

            Dean stared at the shell of his brother kneeling, face turned blindly toward him. Was this some goddamn game? “Open the box, Sam.”

            “It won’t open,” Sam said, irritated.

            “Why not?” Dean asked.

            “Dean?” Sam said again.

            “Do you think he has all the answers?” Lucifer asked Sam.

            “Answers! The asshole is the one who got us into this!”

            “So,” Lucifer looked thoughtful, “if that’s the case, why do you turn to him?”

            Why did Soulless turn to him? Dean had figured it was just to fit in. Or habit because he’d just sort of started telling Soulless what to do and Sammy had always kind of listened to him. But really, without a soul, Sam did a lot things different—he had a shit ton of sex, ate like a horse, didn’t sleep.

            Lucifer was looking at Soulless who had dropped his head so his hair came forward a bit. Like Sam when he was younger. Sam had pretty much stopped hiding behind his hair when he stopped wearing bangs. Now he took his hits.

            “Because,” Sam said after a long pause, “he’s like a compass. It’s all chaos but he, he always points in the same direction. He’s good and I can remember that that’s the direction I want. Without direction there’s no point, it’s just all pain. Being alive, being dead, it all sucks.”

            Lucifer turned to Dean like a magician unveiling a trick. “He has faith in you.”

            Soulless actually laughed. “Well fuck my life.”

            “You’ll have to open the box,” Lucifer said. “But you still care about him.”

            “Are you going to take my soul?” Dean asked.

            “No,” Soulless said. “You can’t take his soul.”

            Dean figured he was probably going to be one of those mindless freaks who wanted to kill everybody on sight. Even with his soul the Mark had let lose that part of him. Without a soul?

            Lucifer put his hand on Sam’s eyes again and when he removed it they were familiar—blue and green and gold. “No,” he said. “It might work but I have an idea instead.” He held Sam’s soul out towards Dean. “Would you like to touch it?”

            “Dean,” Sam said, “No—” Lucifer waved his hand and Sam was cut off. But his eyes. There was real fear in Soulless’ eyes. Fear of what?

            “No,” Dean said.

            “It won’t hurt him,” Lucifer said. “And when else will you have the chance?”

            It was amazingly beautiful, his brother’s soul. It swirled in constant bright motion. He wanted to touch it.  He wanted to hold it. Hell, he wanted to keep it. “Why did he say that?”

            “Because he’s afraid,” Lucifer said. “Afraid you’ll despise him. It’s damaged, you know.”

            Dean frowned at Soulless for a moment but his eyes were drawn back to the soul. To his brother, what really in the end was his brother. That was Sam, everything that mattered about Sam and he could never despise that. He put his hand out, light reflecting off his palm and touched. It was like silk, smooth against his fingers. No, not like silk because it was like energy, maybe a little like electricity except it didn’t shock him. Or maybe like lotion curling around his fingers only not a liquid. It was neither warm nor cold or it was both. He could feel the scars, long strings and knots in the substance of it but they didn’t bother him any more than Sam’s actual scars did. It was nothing like what he thought of when he thought of Sam and yet it was Sam. It was Sammy.

            Crap. He had tears on his face. He was fondling his brother’s soul. He didn’t want to let go. Fondling. What kind of creep was he? He yanked his hand away and looked at his brother’s body.

            Sam saw him yank his hand away. His face curled into something pained and ugly—he thought Dean was disgusted. But before Dean could explain, Lucifer turned and shoved his hand into Sam’s chest, ramming the soul home again. Sam arched and screamed and when Lucifer pulled his empty hand out, he collapsed.

            Dean was held frozen—he had started to go to Sam but Lucifer had him immobile. The fear he’d been fighting since the experience of the Cage came back, his pulse hammering in his ears.

            “What do you love?” Lucifer asked. His pale eyes were gray here. He smiled so regretfully. He walked around Dean, stood on his tiptoes to whisper in Dean’s ear, “What do you have faith in? What was just destroyed?” Lucifer stepped back. “You know what he thinks now? _That his soul disgusts you._ ”

            Dean was breathing heavily. He couldn’t help it.

            “You’re thinking you’ll explain.”

            He would, he would explain.

            Lucifer leaned over Sam and pulled Sam’s Taurus 9mm out from the small of his back. “What if you never got the chance? What if Sam died thinking that? Soul mates, sure. There are things that can destroy that bond.”

            “Stop,” Dean said. His feet wouldn’t move. He pulled his .45 and aimed it at Lucifer. “STOP!”

            Lucifer shot his brother in the center of his chest. Dean fired an instant later but it didn’t matter. Lucifer was already behind him. “I’m so sorry, Dean. But you know, Sam was right, you had to sacrifice something you loved. Something you had faith in. You had faith that Sam loved you, didn’t you. Even if you didn’t always deserve it.”

            The red was pooling under Sam. His Sammy. It was a clean shot, a small hole with a strong pulse of blood then another, a little less strong, then another, less strong, the shattered muscle of Sam’s heart was unspooling with every beat. Trying. Try-ing. Try ing. Tearing itself apart around the damage from the bullet. _Castiel!_ Blood. Dean had seen a lot of blood in his time. People would be surprised how much blood there was in a human body—television always made it seem neater than it was. Sam’s blood was already soaking his shirt.

            “And you were his compass,” Lucifer said in that same mock-sad tone.

            Dean wanted his own heart to shatter. He had led his brother to death. No no no no no nononononono. “FUCK YOU!” Dean shouted. “YOU FUCKING BASTARD! GOD HATES YOU!”

            The Light Bringer smiled. “You don’t have to see it,” he said. Ilya was gone and something vast and beautiful filled Dean’s vision before there was burning and searing pain. He screamed. He couldn’t see anything and he was screaming. Oh God it hurt. His eyes hurt. His heart hurt.

            “Open the box,” Lucifer said in the blackness.

            Did it matter if Lucifer fought the Darkness? Not so much but the box was there, in front of him. His eyes—it hurt. He wanted to curl up in a ball. He put his hands out and found the box, the smooth wooden shape of it and wondered, had the light, the faith, the love gone out of him? He felt the latch and it gave beneath his fingers. He opened the box and felt the Darkness flow out.

            He heard Lucifer howl, the sound ascending the scale into something that was like the recording he had listened to with Sam in the Vatican only here, real, and now. He covered his ears. There was no reason to care anymore so he could give in to the pain and the sadness so he did, letting himself go to his knees and curling over, hands on his ruined face.

            Then something/someone was there. He knew it was Cas even though this was a Cas he had never experienced. Castiel, he thought.

            Grace flooded him, healing.

            _Keep you heads down, your eyes closed, said a voice in his head, that gravelly familiar voice._

            He was not alone, there were others and they were enfolded in what must be Castiel’s wings.

            _My Father is coming, Castiel said._

            It was nothing but darkness, what was the point of closing his eyes? He thought Cas had healed him (too late, Sam, too late.) He was crouched, his knees protesting. Heaven was not much of a place if he ached. He touched a denim clad knee and a hand covered his and clenched it tight. Had Castiel been able to…

            Then there was a little light, red like looking through your fingers only in this case, maybe feathers. The light grew brighter and brighter, impossibly bright. Dean squinted, closed his eyes and ducked his head.

            He could see it through his eyelids, first red and then white and then impossibly bright. He was going to go blind again.

            Then it was gone.

            _I’ll take you all home, Castiel said._

#

 

           

           

           

           

           

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was written before I started posting (I don't trust myself so I try to finish fics before I post) but yesterday I realized this chapter was COMPLETELY WRONG. So I re-wrote it. Everything is un-beta'd as you can probably tell but I try to go over and over the chapters so I can catch most of the infelicities. (There are things I would change about the story in retrospect but when isn't that true?)
> 
> But this chapter is rather raw, so if you notice anything please let me know?


	21. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Please,” Sam said, “don’t. Don’t…look at me... I’ll pack up,” Sam said. “I’ll be out in an hour. I was just going to take a few minutes to... You really don’t have to be here.”
> 
> “No, Sam, it isn’t like that.” Dean felt so raw.
> 
> It was hard to see his brother in the dimness of the room. “I saw your face,” Sam said. “I understand.”

*   *   *

21

            “Dean?” He was in the Bunker and really didn’t want to open his eyes. “Dean,” Cas said insistently. He was in his bed, on his back. The Bunker was reassuringly cool and dim, perpetually night.

            “Sam,” Dean said. He meant to say more, to say Sam was dead. But he couldn’t.

            “Sam is in his room,” Cas said. “He won’t speak to me.”

            “Sam’s alive?” Dean said. He sat bolt upright.

            Cas cocked his head. “Yes,” he said. “Sam is very much alive. As is Ilya, my brother’s vessel. I healed Sam and took Ilya back to Berlin after I brought you both here. What happened?”

            Dean threw himself off the bed. The door to his brother’s room was closed but not locked. The room was dark and he could barely make out Sam lying on his side on the bed. “Sammy?” he said.

            Sam sat up.

            “Hey,” Dean said.

            “Hey,” Sam said quietly.

            Dean wanted to touch his brother. “Can I turn on a light?”

            “Please,” Sam said, “don’t. Don’t…look at me...  I’ll pack up,” Sam said. “I’ll be out in an hour. I was just going to take a few minutes to... You really don’t have to be here.”

            “No, Sam, it isn’t like that.” Dean felt so raw.

            It was hard to see his brother in the dimness of the room. “I saw your face,” Sam said. “I understand.”

            “You don’t,” Dean said.

            “I know how you felt, when you touched it,” Sam said.

            “I felt—” The images were still in Dean’s head. The Cage, Sam, Lucifer. He felt punch drunk. He couldn’t get his thoughts to line up.

            Sam sat still as a stone for a moment and then leaned over and turned his bedside light on. “You touched it and you knew what I am, what I’m really like and you were…it made you sick.”

            “No,” Dean said. “Your soul…it’s bright. It’s fucking brighter than anything.”

            Sam got up and pulled his duffel out. He started with his jeans. Dean knew how Sam packed. Jeans in the bottom. Then shirts and t-shirts. Dop kit on one end. Boxers and everything else at the other end.

            “You’re freaking out. Wait. I…I felt kind of weird touching it.” Totally wrong thing to say. Dean didn’t have words to explain. He was embarrassed because it was Sam. Like worse than naked.

            Sam opened his bottom drawer and pulled out the Ruby knife. He offered it, handle first, to Dean. For a brief moment Dean thought he meant for Dean to use it on him and then he realized that Sam was just offering to leave it with him. They’d traded it off, had for years.

            “You’re not running away again,” Dean growled.

            Sam took that accusation the way he took everything Dean dished out anymore. He heard it and he didn’t even try to defend himself. Dean could see it hurt and part of him wanted it to, wanted Sam to see how much he was hurting Dean. After what they had just been through, he couldn’t fucking walk out!  But Sam shouldered his duffle. He walked out the door of his room.

            Dean followed him and grabbed his arm. Cas was standing in the door of Dean’s room, watching them.  “You’re okay,” Dean said desperately. “He shot you. You were dead. Dying. You can’t leave me now. Damn it Sam, it’s okay now! It’s you and me!”

            “And there ain’t no me if there ain’t no you. I know. It’s not good, it’s going to kill both of us. I can’t do it right. I’m sorry.” Sam looked past him to Castiel. “I’ll…I’ll call in awhile, okay? Take care of him.”

            “Where are you going, Sam?” Cas asked.

            Sam shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”

            “Cas! Don’t let him leave!” Dean said.

            “It isn’t my place to stop him,” Cas said.

            Sam walked towards the library. Dean lunged after him and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him, back. Sam staggered and Dean pushed him against the wall. “This is all wrong,” Dean said. “The Darkness, it’s being destroyed. Now we have to break the curse from Rowena then it’s over. It’s over little brother. Then we can get back to the way things were.”

            “Things never ‘were’,” Sam said, his back against the wall. “It was always messed up. Either I wanted to go to Stanford or you felt like you had to sell your soul or I was hooked on demon blood or I’d fucked everything up and let the devil out of the Cage or I was hallucinating or soulless or I didn’t come and look for you or I was lying to you about what the Trials were doing to me and jealous of Benny. It’s never, ever been good for you.”

            “You’ve been good for me!” Dean insisted.

            “Let go of me,” Sam said quietly. He pulled away. He didn’t look angry, just sad. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to worry anymore. It’s over. You won’t be alone, Cas is here.”

            Dean stepped back. Sam walked down the hallway past the place where Dean had hit the wall with a hammer, trying to spatter Sam’s brains everywhere. Dean watched him go.

#

            On the television, light shattered the Darkness in Japan. Newscasters were coming in their briefs. Twenty-four hour coverage. The Darkness was already gone from New Mexico. Dean wondered what was going to happen to the tours. He wondered vaguely what was going to happen to that sweet pair of autocannons. Like it mattered now.

            He was so tired he couldn’t think and if he was tired, Sam had to be but Sam had left and there were no cars missing from the garage. Dean had begged Cas to find his brother, tell him to sleep a night before taking off. Let someone drive him somewhere.

            Cas said he found Sam walking towards Lebanon. Sam didn’t want to come back. Dean called him and Sam picked up.

            “What the fuck, Sammy.”

            “What the fuck, what?” Sam said.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Trying to hitch. Apparently people don’t stop for big sweaty guys with duffle bags.”

            “Come back or I’ll kick your ass.”

            Sam hung up.

            Dean hit redial.

            “Hello, Dean.”

            “Come back.”

            Sam hung up.

            Dean hit redial.

            Sam picked up but didn’t bother to say anything.

            “We have a garage full of cars. Why are you walking?”

            “Because a Pierce-Arrow would be hard to maintain and there’s no place on a motorcycle for a duffel bag.”

            “You could have taken the Ford Explorer,” Dean said.

            “I thought about it.”

            Dean started to ask why he didn’t and then realized he didn’t care and that making Sam answer questions wouldn’t help. He thought carefully about what to say next and finally settled on, “We saved the world again.”

            “Yeah. Are you all right?”

            “Just great,” Dean said. (No. And neither are you. Come back to the Bunker.) “I don’t…I gotta ask you a question.”

            Sam didn’t say anything for a long time. A car passed on the road.

            “Sam?” Dean asked.

            “I’m really tired,” Sam said.

            Dean’s chest hurt a little.

            “Can Cas take you to a motel?”

            Sam sighed. “I guess.”

            “Why can’t you just come and get some sleep, dude?”

            Another car passed. “Because one day I think that maybe we’re good, and you tell me that it’s a blank slate, and the next day you’re reminding me that I drank demon blood and fucked a demon and I did, I know I did. But I just can’t figure out how to be what you need, Dean.”

            “I don’t need you to be anything, except alive,” Dean said. “You know that.”

            “I guess I don’t.”

            “You know half the stuff I say I don’t mean. You know that.”

            “Yeah, Dean,” Sam said. “I know. Just, I’m not always sure what half.”

#


	22. Fame and Fortune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl was looking around. She’d pulled a 9mm Colt but was holding it loosely in her hand. She had dark hair so short it was almost a buzz cut. “People say they’ve seen them in Kansas. It’s been all over the boards.”
> 
> “People talk shit,” the guy said. His hair was longer than the girl’s, Dean’s length.
> 
> “It’s on the Roadhouse,” she said insistently, as if that meant something. “Something stopped the Darkness.”
> 
> “Dean’s dead and Sam’s disappeared, probably dead too.”
> 
> That was too much for Dean. “Winchesters have a habit of not staying dead,” he said.

*   *   *

22

            Sam didn’t come back. Dean shouldn’t have been surprised, not after Stanford except that since Stanford, any time Sam had left—right before the scarecrow-god or when things got so bad after Lucifer rose—he’d always wanted to come back. Hell, it was Dean who hadn’t let him come back after Lucifer rose. Even after Gadreel, Sam had come back.

            At least Sam always answered his phone. Once he answered the phone, he always had to answer Dean’s (sometimes drunken) questions. Where are you? In a motel in Missouri. Are you coming back? Not now.

            “Why not?”

            “Because I can’t give you what you need and I make things worse,” Sam said, sounding tired. The television was on in the background. “You’re a good man. You’re not alone. You’ve got Cas. If you want to talk to me, you can call me.”

            “We’re better together than we are apart. It’s a mistake when we split up.”

            “That used to be true.”

            “What do you want, Sammy?” There was a long pause.  Questions were weapons.  He'd never asked Sam so many questions in his life. The only problem was Dean was afraid of the answer he would hear. The television in Sam’s room played some kind of tense music.

            Finally Sam said, “I’m trying to learn not to want anything but I want you to stop hurting yourself and I want you to stop hurting me.”

            He knew it. Sam was pissed at him. It was always his fault. Sam wasn’t going to admit it but this was just part of his whole holier-than-thou thing. Saint-fucking-Sam. Sam the martyr.

            “Screw you,” Dean said and hung up.

            The next day he found a hunt in Illinois and headed there. He didn’t let Cas come because Cas sided with Sam. It might have been close to where Sam was in Missouri and it might have been a place where Sam might end up hunting but that wasn’t why he took it. A poltergeist was a nasty thing no matter what.

            When he got to Illinois there was no sign of Sam but he found two kids in their mid-twenties; a guy and a girl, armed to the teeth and already halfway through digging up a grave. The girl was doing a fine job of holding off the spirit and the guy was digging so he stood back and watched them work, keeping a tire iron close in case the spirit decided to take an interest in him. They’d have to go back to the house where the poltergeist was to finish the job but they’d done their research, starting with the grave.

            It was close to four in the morning when they finished. People thought you could dig a grave up in an hour or two but it was long hard work. They walked back to their truck and saw the Impala.

            “Oh my God,” the girl said. “You don’t think?”

            The guy pulled up his shotgun. “It’s a wanna-be,” he said.

            The girl was looking around. She’d pulled a 9mm Colt but was holding it loosely in her hand. She had dark hair so short it was almost a buzz cut. “People say they’ve seen them in Kansas. It’s been all over the boards.”

            “People talk shit,” the guy said. His hair was longer than the girl’s, Dean’s length.

            “It’s on the Roadhouse,” she said insistently, as if that meant something. “Something stopped the Darkness.”

            “Dean’s dead and Sam’s disappeared, probably dead too.”

            That was too much for Dean. “Winchesters have a habit of not staying dead,” he said.

            The guy startled but the girl just trained her gun on him. He was standing under trees, hidden in the dark.

            “You want to come out where we can see you?” the guy said.

            “You gonna shoot me?” Dean asked. He lifted his hands up and away from his body, still holding the tire iron loosely in his right, and walked out to where the guy could get a flashlight beam on him.

            “Oh my God,” the girl said, “you’re Dean Winchester. I’ve read your dad’s journal and all the notes you and your brother added.”

            “How’d you read Dad’s journal?” Dean asked, uneasy.

            “It’s been scanned and uploaded to the web,” the guy said. “On a darknet site for hunters called The Roadhouse.”

            “Yeah, Mike, we can ask him about the hex bags.”

            “Yeah, we’re following your notes from a poltergeist case and we’re using your recipe for hexbags,” the guy, Mike, said. He looked about twenty-five. About the age Dean had been when he hauled Sam out of Stanford. About the age Sam had been when he jumped into The Cage. But he looked so young, too young to hunt.

            “Why don’t we go get breakfast,” Dean said. They looked at each other like he was Matt Damon or something. “Since that truck of yours doesn’t have a back seat, I’ll drive.”

            The girl, who had so impressed him with her cool, squeaked, “The Impala?”

            He wasn’t _that_ much older than her. Why did the thought of hitting on her feel like hitting on a kid?

#

            He sat in a pancake place answering questions about poltergeists and hexbags. The pancake place looked like a greasy spoon but when he’d ordered coffee he’d had a choice of a medium roast from Columbia and a darker roast from Kenya. He could imagine John Winchester’s reaction.

            He went with them to the poltergeist house where they were almost instantly in over their heads. No fault of theirs since they had no experience with a poltergeist that had attracted a couple of minor demons. They were pissy little guys without meat suits who shouldn’t have been out of hell and without meatsuits the only way Dean even knew they were there was the smell of sulfur.

            One of them started smoking up Mike’s nose and Dean had had it. “I’m Dean Winchester you slimy little smoke bomb and I’VE GOT THE KING OF HELL ON SPEED DIAL SO GET OUT OF HERE OR I’LL SEND YOU HOME!”

            The cloud reversed itself fast and another one Dean hadn’t noticed in a corner joined it. Both slipped into a vent and were gone. Mike staggered a little, wide-eyed and the poltergeist immediately picked him up and slammed him into drywall. Dean ran to the kitchen and hacked a hole in the wall and thrust his bag in. The house was empty so thank God, there were no knives to throw at him. Instead he got a couple of kitchen chairs broken across his back.

            The girl, Irene, had run upstairs. Mike was trying to get up, obviously seeing stars. Dean didn’t wait to check on him, just hoofed it to the bedroom where Irene was ducking bricks and broken boards. He grabbed the hexbag from her and stuffed it in the wall and was grateful there was no basement.

            Everything flashed white then all the ruckus stopped.

            Irene gasped, “Is it gone?”

            “Yep,” Dean straightened up and dusted off his. “Good times. Lets get a beer.”

#

            They showed him a website called The Harvelle Blues Memorial Roadhouse or just The Roadhouse for short. You couldn’t find it on Google or Search the Web or any of the usual search engines. “It’s a darknet site,” Mike explains. “It’s for hunters. It’s anonymous. These three people set it up and run it; phreakboy, schnectedy666, and NotaWendigo. Hey look, you’ve got an icon for it. You’re already set up for it.” Dean realized Sam had showed him when they thought they were splitting up in Rome but he hadn’t paid any attention to it. Now he drank his beer and looked. (Mike desperately wanted to ask how he had it already set up but Dean had already made it clear he wasn’t into personal questions.)

            It was a message board where people could ask questions. There was a section for newbies with all sorts of basic information. There was a _Bobby’s List_ which turned out to be like Craig’s list for hunters. It listed things that needed to be checked out, things people wanted to sell and buy, even places to rent. Dean went back to the questions. Someone had posted a question about signs of a wendigo. Dean rolled his eyes. His dad had seen one goddamn wendigo in his entire hunting career. He looked over the signs. It was in Arizona, which still had way too much activity even after the Darkness was gone. All those monsters riled up with no place to go.

            Not a wendigo but possibly something worse. He clicked on the question and a little notification box popped up that said, ‘You are logged in as TheRealDeanW’ Type Y to continue N to logout.’ He snorted and typed Y. Thank you Sammy. ‘ _Wendigo like temperate forests and you’re way too far south. What you’re looking at may be a_ _yee naaldlooshii in which case you are well and truly fucked unless you can find a Navajo to help. Navajo shit is powerful and really wack. Don’t tackle this without help and back-up._ ’

            Mike pointed him to a question about demon activity (he answered, it was not demon activity, looked fucked up human to him). He ignored all the questions about what happened with the Darkness although it was fun to read what people were guessing. A lot of people thought God. One thread thought aliens. There was a whole thread dedicated to speculating about him and Sam.

            Irene showed him Dad’s journal. Also his and Sam’s. Since Sam had kept his journal and given it back to him that meant…Sam had done it. That kind of pissed him off although he was dead and he shouldn’t have cared. Still, it felt weird to see his stuff out there for anyone to see. He clicked through it and found that big chunks of it were missing. He went out to the Impala and popped the trunk and the secret compartment and found his journal, dad’s journal, and oddly enough, Sam’s little black food notebook. He grabbed his journal and went back in.

            Mike and Irene watched him sit down. “Everything okay?” Irene asked.

            “Yeah,” Dean said. “Just checking something.” He flipped open his journal. Everything about his crossroads deal and the Mark of Cain had been blocked out of the online version. Some stuff about the time leading up to releasing Lucifer and to Stull Cemetery had been as well but only stuff that might make Dean look bad. There was still his notes about the effect of demon blood addiction and Sam’s detox in there. Sam had carefully protected Dean but not himself.

            Then Dean found the Winchester section.

            It was huge.

#

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcannon: I am convinced that someone by now would have set up a Hunter's forum on the net. I'm also sure that Garth would be one of the moderators. I'm pretty sure it would be like the Supernatural Wiki (which I use all the time) plus chat rooms and places to post questions and upload useful stuff. I would love to lurk.
> 
> I'm pretty sure Sam would know about the secret Hunter's forum but Dean wouldn't because I'm also pretty sure Dean has no idea what the darknet is and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the darknet. He'd have ended up speculating in bitcoin and finding websites that loaded unimaginable viruses on Sam's machine.


	23. The Real Dean W

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are. There are a whole bunch of people talking about whether or not we have sex with each other! It’s like those girls and that dumb play!”
> 
> “BM and Destial,” Sam said.
> 
> “That too! There’s a bunch of stuff about when I died! Copies of all my death certificates! A whole long thing about whether you’re alive or not! Recent sightings of us and stills from security cameras from that Gas n Sip in Lebanon! It’s like Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie!”
> 
> “I’ve gotta be Brad Pitt, I’m taller than you.”
> 
> “No fucking way, you’re the one who eats weird. There’s this new book out, did you know?”
> 
> “Yeah.”
> 
> “I thought there weren’t any more prophets.”
> 
> “It’s not one of Chuck’s books. It’s a non-fiction book. Well, sort of. Hold on.” He could hear Sam rustling around, probably pulling over his laptop. “Right. Blood Brothers: How a Warped Childhood Led to Shared Delusions, Incest, and the Strangest Killing Spree in U.S. History. It’s true crime.”

*  *  *

23

            He called Sam from his motel room. “I’m on that jacked up website.”

            “What?” Sam sounded out of it.

            “Are you sick?” Dean asked.

            “No,” Sam said, “it’s 2:30 in the morning. I didn’t sleep much the last couple of nights.”

            “Oh, you want to go back to sleep?” As soon as Dean said it he knew the answer.

            “No, it’s all right. I won’t be able to for awhile.”

            Sam and sleep’s relationship. As Facebook would say, ‘it’s complicated'. “So this website—”

            “What website?”

            “The top secret hunters website.”

            “The Roadhouse?”

            “Yeah. It’s got a whole section about us. It’s full of crazy shit. All the stupid books are there. People talk about us.”

            Sam made a funny noise.

            “Don’t laugh.”

            “I’m not.”

            “You are. There are a whole bunch of people talking about whether or not we have sex with each other! It’s like those girls and that dumb play!”

            “BM and Destial,” Sam said.

            “That too! There’s a bunch of stuff about when I died! Copies of all my death certificates! A whole long thing about whether you’re alive or not! Recent sightings of us and stills from security cameras from that Gas n Sip in Lebanon! It’s like Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie!”

            “I’ve gotta be Brad Pitt, I’m taller than you.”

            “No fucking way, you’re the one who eats weird. There’s this new book out, did you know?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I thought there weren’t any more prophets.”

            “It’s not one of Chuck’s books. It’s a non-fiction book. Well, sort of. Hold on.” He could hear Sam rustling around, probably pulling over his laptop. “Right. _Blood Brothers: How a Warped Childhood Led to Shared Delusions, Incest, and the Strangest Killing Spree in U.S. History_. It’s true crime.”

            “You knew about it. Did you read it?”

            “Yeah,” Sam said. “It’s really badly written, thank God.” He sounded beaten down.

            “You okay?”

            There was a pause while Sam apparently tried to figure out what the true answer to that was. “Yeah, I’m okay. By our standards. Are you?”

            “I’m fine. Where are you?”

            “Detroit.”

            Last answer Dean would have expected. Well, besides Broward County Florida. “What the fuck are you doing there?”

            “Trying to deal with PTSD. Please stop asking me complicated questions at two in the morning. Where are you?”

            “Illinois. I thought you were in Missouri.”

            “I was. Now I’m in Michigan. Are you hunting?”

            “Yeah, I met a couple of kids, helped them with a poltergeist.”

            “Where’s Cas?” Sam asked.

            “At the Bunker, I guess. So you go on this website but you don’t bother to tell people you aren’t dead. That’s kind of creepy, dude.”

            “If people are going to speculate about my sex life, I figure I don’t really owe them much explanation. Did you post anything?”

            “I…uh, some moron thought they found a wendigo in Arizona.”

            Sam laughed again which made Dean feel better. “Yeah, everybody is always seeing signs of wendigos. You’d think they were as common as vamps. When they see your handle you’re going to set the rumor mill churning. You want me to change it?”

            “I don’t think I want to drive to Detroit so you can change my nickname.”

            “I can do it from here, I’m one of the administrators on the site.”

            “No shit?”

            “Yeah, me and Garth and some woman from Cal Tech who only hunted for a year. Garth is NotaWendigo if you ever want to get in touch with him through the site. He’s really active.”

            “What’s your name?”

            “Phreakboy. With a ‘ph’.”

            Goddamnit, Sam.

#

            Dean discovered ‘chat’ on The Roadhouse. NotaWendigo was on chat a lot. Garth taught him private messaging which gave him a chance to find out how Garth was doing (married life was great.) Garth was Garth which was charming but made Dean a little less partial to chat.

            A new thread opened up in the Winchester section: Is TheRealDeanW really Dean Winchester back from the dead? The majority of posters didn’t seem to think he was. He got into arguments. He called Sam. Sam explained ‘flamewars’ and ‘trolls’. Flamewars turned out to be the internet equivalent of barfights except they tended to make Dean feel worse afterwards instead allowing him to burn off rage.

            Phreakboy banned him from certain threads. When he tried to post to them he was locked out.

            He called Sam and yelled at him. Sam said he had to go to work and would talk to Dean in a few hours. Dean was in Montana hunting what appeared to be a real, honest to God leviathan with Cas and a guy who had been hunting for fifteen years but had never hunted a leviathan.

            “You’ve got a job?” Dean said.

            “Yeah,” Sam said. “I’m writing grants for an organization that supports food pantries. I work out of Gleaners.”

            “Where are you these days.”

            “Still in Detroit,” Sam said. “Gotta go. Be careful.”

            “How is Sam?” Cas asked. Dean knew Cas visited Sam, the angel wasn’t secret about it. But mostly Cas stayed with Dean.

            “He’s got a job in Detroit,” Dean said. “I think he’s having some sort of midlife crisis.”

#

            Sam had been gone for five months. Dean felt in some ways he talked to him more now than he did when they were in the Impala every day.

            “Where are you?” Sam asked.

            “Wisconsin,” Dean said. “I was thinking, it’s not to far from Detroit.”

            “Not for a Winchester,” Sam said.

            “We need to go after Rowena,” Dean said. He was getting pretty good at not asking Sam a question unless he intended to. “I’ll come to Detroit and pick you up. We can finally track the bitch down.”

            “No need,” Sam said.

            “We gotta lift this curse,” Dean said.

            “No we don’t,” Sam said. “This way you know I’m not keeping any secrets from you and you’ve got control.”

            “We’ve got to do it so you can come home,” Dean said. “This is crazy.”

            “That’s not why I’m not living in the Bunker,” Sam said. “And don’t ask me why over the phone. Come and visit. You can meet Sadie.”

            “You’ve got a girlfriend,” Dean said.

            “Worse,” Sam said. “I got a dog.”

#

            Driving into Detroit, Cas asked, “Why is a dog worse?”

Dean explained. “He’s given up a girlfriend before. But a dog, that’s serious.”

            Cas tilted his head. “Most people would consider giving up a relationship with a person much more serious than giving up a dog.”

            “You’d think,” Dean said. “But see, a person can take care of themselves. A dog is totally dependent on people. When Sam ran away when he was a kid, he found a stray and Dad made him leave the dog behind. Bones. Sam worried about that dog for years.”

            The Impala rumbled through Detroit streets. Baby’s birthplace. Dean hadn’t known when they’d finish the hunt and get to Detroit. Sam had told him that if he had to go to work he’d leave his apartment unlocked but Dean had pointed out that Cas could just unlock it from the inside or Dean could pick the lock.

It was work hours but Dean had decided that they’d just head to the food pantry.

            It was a brick building with lots of truck bays strung out behind it and some chain link fence. There was parking. Across the street was grass and trees. Dean parked and found a door. The receptionist was black. “Can I help you?” she asked giving Cas the eye. The Holy Accountant look was a little out of place, as was the trench coat in September.

            “I’m looking for my brother,” Dean said. “He works here. Sam? Tall guy? Longish hair?”

            She smiled, “Sam? Oh yeah, he’s on the second floor. Take the elevator, turn left, two doors down on the left side. Can’t miss it. Want me to call him?”

            Dean shook his head. “Want to surprise him. He knows we’re coming but doesn’t expect to see us until tonight.”

            In the elevator, Dean was nervous. Over the years he had pretended to be many things, an FBI agent, a priest, a representative of the CDC, but seeing his brother was a lot scarier. The elevator was old. Slow. The offices were small and Sam shared an office with two other people. He was engrossed, working on his laptop, surrounded by file folders. In a big dog bed next to his desk was one of the weirder looking dogs Dean had ever seen. She was gray with a white face and belly and paws and her coat looked like someone had stuck a fork in an electrical outlet. She saw them in the doorway and her tail thumped and Sam and the two women in the office looked up.

            Sam’s face opened. Happy to see them. No question he was happy. “Dean! What are you doing here!” He stepped over the dog to hug Dean tight, a desperate hug. Almost a ‘you’re back from Hell level of hug.’ When he finally let go he said, “Hey Cas. Hey Sadie, look who’s here! It’s Cas! And Dean! Judy, Leanna, this is my brother! And this is Cas!”

            The dog knew Cas and had her nose in his hand.

            Judy and Leanna made, ‘we’ve heard all about you’ noises.

            “Dude,” Dean said, “That is one weird looking dog.”

            Leanna quirked an eyebrow. “You got that right.”

            Judy just let loose a peel of laughter.

            “You’re going to hurt her feelings,” Sam said. “It’s okay Sadie, ignore the son of a bitch.”

            Sadie swung her tail lazily back and forth.

            “I’ve gotta finish up one thing, give me ten minutes? Then I’ll take off with you guys.”

            “That dog is not getting in my car,” Dean said.

            “Um-hmm,” Leanna said. “I like the way you think.”

            “I am wounded.” Sam stood, one hand covering his heart. “Judy,” he implored.

            “They just don’t understand your baby,” Judy crooned to the dog. “Some people got hard hearts. Come here little girl, mama’s got a cookie for you.” Sadie had ears like a German Shepherd and they snapped to Judy on the word ‘cookie’. Sam gave Dean a look.

#

“Are you going to get in trouble for taking off like that?” Dean said.

“No, they can only afford to pay me for twenty hours a week so I volunteer some hours,” Sam said. He opened the back door of an ancient Ford Focus and Sadie leaped in.

“What kind of dog is that?”

“Siberian Husky and Labrador Retriever is our best guess,” Sam said. “I’ve got beer at my place.”

If you had seen one place Sam had furnished you had seen them all. Old couch, one side table and lamp, kitchen table with two matching chairs and one odd one, all from Goodwill. The bed was an ancient king. It had a white headboard with a kind of gold antiquing thing going on. It was terrifically ugly. The apartment had sliding glass doors onto a little balcony. It had all the personality of a drug store. The one addition was a big dog bed in every room.

            The dog flopped down and Sam handed Dean a beer. “You want one, Cas?”

            “No thank you, Sam.”

            Sam grabbed a Coke for himself. Dean noticed but didn’t ask. There were no casual questions anymore and lots of minefields. He tried to think of what to say that wasn’t a question and finally settled on, “You look good.” Not strictly true. Sam didn’t look bad but he didn’t look like he was working out much and when he didn’t work out he lost muscle mass and got thinner.

            “You, too,” Sam said. “How are you?”

            “Me?” Dean said. “Fine.”

            Sam looked at Cas. “How are you?”

            “I’m good, Sam, thank you.”

            “And how is he, really?”

            “Better, like we’ve discussed,” Cas said.

            “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean said. “’Like we’ve discussed’?”

            Cas was standing and Sam had sat down on one of the kitchen chairs, his elbows resting on his knees, fingertips tented. The two of them looked at him.

            “We talk about you whenever we see each other,” Cas said.

            “So you’re sitting around discussing … me? Like I’m some website topic?”

            “Well, we don’t talk as much about your sex life or whether or not you’re dead,” Sam said.

            “Stop talking about me,” Dean said.

            “I don’t think we will,” Cas said.

            “We got in the habit after you died,” Sam said, like that made it less fucked up.

            “I’m not dead now,” Dean said. “So you can talk about other shit.”

            Cas looked at Sam, who shrugged.

            “Sam misses you and worries about you,” Cas said, as if offering some sort of explanation.

            “Then he can damn well come home!”

            The dog got up and walked over to Sam, her toenails clicking on the laminate floor. She pressed herself against his leg and he teased her ears with his long fingers. It was very quiet in the room.

            “I want to ask what you’re doing. This job you’ve taken, in Detroit. You gotta admit, Detroit is a weird place to pick,” Dean said. “I fucking hate this town. I got bad memories of this place and so do you.”

            Sam nodded and looked down at the dog. “I came here because I read some stuff about PTSD. You know, it’s not like we can go find a therapist. There’s this thing called exposure therapy and it’s supposed to be effective so I thought I would try it. I didn’t plan to stay and get a job.”

            “You’re your own shrink now. Great. I don’t think it works that way,” Dean said. He knew his tone was ugly but he couldn’t help it. Why go to the place where Sam had said yes to Lucifer. Where they had almost ended the world and Sam had started the process that sent him to Hell? “So next you should head to Florida. And maybe after that, The Cage.”

            “Dean,” Cas said.

            Sam watched Dean, his forehead bunched. He still had his hand on the dog but he’d forgotten to keep moving his fingers. She turned and nosed at him. He started again.

            “Therapy is working in a soup kitchen in Detroit instead of hunting.”

            “Dean,” Cas said again.

            “Stay out of this,” Dean growled at Cas. “You couldn’t find a dog to hit this time so you just bought one.”

            He hadn’t meant to get mad at Sam but months of hurt welled up. Sam had run away. Again. The dog whined, high and nervous, but Sam just swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing.

            “Do you feel good about this?” Dean asked.

            “It’s none of you business,” Sam said.

            “This is just more of you masochistic crap.”

            “DEAN,” Cas said.

            “THIS IS BETWEEN SAM AND ME!” Dean yelled. Sam started violently and the dog bared her teeth at both Dean and Cas.

            “It’s okay,” Sam whispered to the dog. “I’ve never seen her do that,” he said helplessly. “I’ll put her in the bedroom. Come on, girl.” He grabbed her collar and urged her to come with him but she squared all four paws, resisting for a moment before she gave in. She hugged his leg while they disappeared into the bedroom. Sam didn’t come out for a long minute.

            Fucking Sam and his fucking drama.

            “We should go,” Cas said. “We can come back later when you have calmed down.”

            “Me?!” Dean said. “I’m not the one who started all this.” Cas opened his mouth to say something and Dean cut him off, “I’m not the one who ran off.”

            “Do you want to hurt your brother?” Cas asked, just as Sam was coming out of the bedroom, closing his bedroom door behind him.

            “I want him to come home!” Dean said.

            “And you think hurting him is the way to convince him to come back?” Cas said.

            “I hurt him,” Sam said. “It’s only fair.” _Every time your heart beats, I cause you pain. Heart’s needle._

            Fuck. “Let’s go find a motel,” Dean said to Cas. To Sam he said, “We’ll be back.”

#

 

 


	24. Vishnu's Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waterfowl: Dean’s looking for Sam?
> 
> GreatLatinaHope: He’s working in Detroit!
> 
> GreatLatinaHope: For a charity!
> 
>  
> 
> Dean said, “They found you.”
> 
> Sam got that funny wrinkle quirk between his eyebrows and flipped the screen around so he could read it. “Oh fuck,” he said. He took a drink of beer. Then he typed something.

*   *   *

24

            They found a hotel and met Sam for dinner—he took them to a burger and beer joint. Everybody pretended that nothing had happened except that Sam knocked his water over and finished his first beer faster than Dean. Dean told stories about hunting with kids from the Roadhouse.

            “They talk about you in chat all the time,” Sam said. “Somebody spotted the Impala coming into Detroit and they’re all trying to figure out where you are.”

            “How do you know that?” Dean asked.

            Sam pushed his big, flatscreen phone over at Dean. “I’m a moderator, remember? There’s a 24 hour, invite only DeanW chat room to discuss hunts and sightings, Angie.”

            “I’m not Angie, I’m Brad Pitt. You’re Angelina.” Dean looked at the screen. People were scouring the news sources for a possible hunt in Detroit. Others were trying to figure out if there were any hunters in Detroit. It was stalker stuff until:

 

GreatLatinaHope: HOLY SHIT

Devilstrap: Hope?????

GreatLatinaHope: Sam Fucking Winchester!!!!!!!!!

AmberFancy: WHAT?

Sambeth: No way!!!!!

SemirahHunt: ????

Waterfowl: Dean’s looking for Sam?

GreatLatinaHope: He’s working in Detroit!

GreatLatinaHope: For a charity!

 

            Dean said, “They found you.”

            Sam got that funny wrinkle quirk between his eyebrows and flipped the screen around so he could read it. “Oh fuck,” he said. He took a drink of beer. Then he typed something.

            Dean grabbed the phone back.

 

Phreakboy: Don’t show up at my job or I’ll ban all your asses.

 

            The chat room erupted in exclamations marks, obscenities, and hysteria.

            Dean laughed, “Way to make an entrance, dude.”

            Sam pushed the phone over to a very patient Cas.

            “Do you think that’s wise?” Cas asked.

            Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll see how it plays out. If I have to leave, I’ll leave. Garth does most of the day to day stuff anyway.”

            Dean boggled at the thought of an angel who was familiar with chat rooms. “You know about this?” he asked.

            “I have an account as Feathers,” Cas said. “Sam made it for me but I have only used it once. Sometimes Sam has shown me things people were saying about—” Cas clearly was about to say ‘about you’ but stopped short.

            Sam was dissecting his chicken sandwich. Bread to the side. Eat a bite of tomato. Try unobtrusively to scrape off some of the breading on the chicken breast. Get interested in his phone.

            Dean said, “Eat your chicken, Sam.”

            Without looking up from the phone, Sam gave him the finger. That, at least, was normal. He knew why Sam wasn’t eating. Drama queen. (His fault his fault his fault, like a heartbeat.) Maybe Sam was right that when they were together, all they did was hurt each other.

#

            He couldn’t sleep. Not such a surprise. He got up and checked the Roadhouse on his laptop. There was a new thread in the Winchester section about Sam but it was as much about sighting the Impala and possible hunts and excitement that he and Sam were hunting together. He itched to tell them no and leave his brother alone. He wondered what was going on in the chat thingy Sam had showed him. He checked the list of chats and looked in all of them but only a couple of them had people talking in them and none of them were the one where people were talking about him and Sam.

            Must be some secret thing.

            He wondered if Sam were up (like Sam was asleep—when Sam was like he was at dinner, Sam would be awake half the night) but thought it was probably not good to message him.

            He thought about calling Cas even though Cas needed to be allowed more life than coming at his every whim. Phone call, he decided. He pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jacket (slung over the back of a chair.) No bars. Which was weird because he’d had a strong signal earlier.

            “Hey Cas, don’t let me bug you if you’re, you know, delivering pizza or something because I’m just, you know, hanging here thinking about another beer—”

            He’d gotten used to the sound of Cas’ wings before he even finished his sentence. But there was nothing.

            “You’re asleep.”

            He was in his boxers so he didn’t have his .45. Sitting in the room’s only armchair was his Not-Dad, the one who looked like John in his late twenties. Lying in bed, still sitting up against the headboard with the remote by his hand, was himself, clearly asleep. The TV timer must have turned the TV off.

            “So you’re a dream,” Dean said.

            “Aren’t we all Vishnu’s dream?” Not-Dad said. “Or something like that?”

            “You’ve got the wrong brother for that crap, you should ask Sam. He’s the one who knows mythology.”

            Not-Dad nodded. “Right, you’re the dumb one. Daddy’s blunt little instrument. The whole stupid thing has it’s uses,” Not-Dad looked sad, “hasn’t it become a little constricting?”

            “Oh, great,” Dean said. “Therapy. First Sam, now you. Can we skip the mystical stuff and get to the point?”

            “The point is a thank you,” Not-Dad said. The room was dim in the glow of the light from the laptop screen, but his expression was very clear. “You did what needed to be done and no one has paid more dearly for it than you and Sam.” Not-Dad looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe Lucifer.”

            “I’m supposed to feel sorry for _him_?” Dean said.

            “You’re not, no,” Not-Dad said. “Anyway, I came to say thank you. I know what your brother wants more than anything, but he’ll never ask for it. I wanted to ask you what you wanted now that you’ve saved the world, again?”

            Who was this guy? Michael? Michael didn’t seem to be the kind to hand out favors. God? Sam believed this guy was God but Dean was still pretty sure God had pretty much left the building. That left Lucifer, who did make offers. And would be all boohoo about himself.

            Not-Dad shook his head. “Lucifer is far away. His part in defeating the Darkness took a toll on him and I don’t think you’ll see him for a long time, if ever. So what do you want?”

            Dean was reminded of a song Sam liked when he was a kid. He’d tried to learn all the words. _If I had a million dollars/w_ _ell, I'd buy you a K-Car/a nice reliant automobile…_ “I don’t want anything. Just ask Famine.”

            Not-Dad was quiet. “You didn’t learn anything?” he finally said. “All this pain?”

            “Are you telling me that this was some sort of lesson?” Dean said. “That the whole world was put in danger and all those people died to teach me a lesson? Because if the universe works that way, fuck you, fuck God, fuck everything and everybody.”

            Not-Dad shook his head. “No, but if you’re going to go through all that, you could have at least a bit of something to balance against the hurt.” The laptop monitor flickered and suddenly Dean was looking at Sam. Not his face, not like they were talking to each other, but like he was a camera or a fly on the wall. As he suspected, his brother was also on his laptop and Sam was talking to someone.

            He was in the middle of a conversation and Dean could see just enough of the screen to see that Sam was talking to Paolo, his priest friend from Rome. They were talking in a mixture of English and Italian. Sam said in English, “Okay, show me,” and Paolo must have done something on his keyboard because his face was replaced by an image of a pouting thirty-something man with light brown hair and blue eyes.

            Sam said something in Italian and the picture disappeared and Paolo was scowling. He said something that sounded false-hurt and Sam laughed and said _something something Dean_. Paolo clutched his chest. Then he laughed. “You just want me to be your _cognato_.”

            This sent them into a flurry of Italian and then Sam signed off.

            Not-Dad said, “You’ve both had so many injuries you should be punch drunk. Like those football players and boxers who can’t remember their own names.” Dean wasn’t quite sure what the point of this was. He just watched his brother. Maybe for a lot of people, watching someone when they didn’t know they were being watched would be a revelation, but when you’ve lived with someone in the same room for much of your life, watching Sam at one in the morning was as familiar as brushing his teeth. “Castiel cleans up all the plaque in your brain and takes care of that every time he heals you. He’s really diligent.”

            Dean glanced at Not-Dad and went back to watching Sam. It was soothing.

            “He hasn’t had to heal Sam in over five years, though. And he was so busy watching for that kind of neuron damage that he missed a weakness in an artery.”

            Dean tore his eyes from the screen. “What are you saying?”

            “It’s a weakness in an artery wall,” Not-Dad explained. “Every time Sam’s blood pressure went up from stress, or exercise, it put pressure on that weak spot. Sam uses running as a stress reliever but while he runs, his heart rate goes up. He runs in the morning with his new dog. Every time they played one of those audio files of Enochian, his blood pressure would soar so high it would give him nose bleeds. Like you, he has PTSD. Flashbacks and anxiety attacks are, as you might guess, accompanied by an increase in blood pressure. That weak spot has been ballooning out, and like a balloon, the tissue gets thinner and thinner and the risk is, one of these times, his blood pressure will rise, while he’s running, or having a flashback…”

            Dean looked back at the monitor. Sam had stood up. He stretched, raised his arms a little above his head, and then just stood for a moment, lost in thought.

            “…or even just think about an argument he had earlier in the day, and that balloon will rupture. Now.”

            Sam rubbed his face and went and got a glass of water.

            “What did you do to him,” Dean whispered.

            Sam put his glass of water down and rubbed his forehead. Then he braced his hands against the counter and squeezed his eyes shut.

            “It was already there,” Not-Dad said. “The first symptom of cerebral hemorrhage is a really bad headache, loss of vision and weakness on one side. Sam’s left. Often accompanied by nausea.”

            “Stop it,” Dean said.

            “Sam wants peace but doesn’t think he deserves it,” Not-Dad said. “Do you think he deserves it?”

            Sam stood in the blue light of the monitor. He straightened. Dean could see he was confused. He reached up and fumbled a little at a cupboard door and managed to pull out a bottle of some kind of over the counter medicine. He tried to hold it in his left hand while he popped the top with his right—his left hand was already clumsy, like he was numb.

            “Hmm,” said Not-Dad. “Most people take Tylenol or Ibuprofen. Sam’s old school and takes aspirin.”

            “Because it’s cheap,” Dean said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the screen.

            “That’s bad, aspirin increases bleeding.”

            “Sam,” Dean said. “Sammy, no. Call someone.”

            “You don’t think he deserves peace? He thought you deserved heaven. You don’t think he does?”

            “Not like this,” Dean said. “Not alone in some crappy apartment!”

            Sam managed the aspirin but when he turned he had to use a kitchen chair to balance. His left side was clearly out of whack. Dean could watch him trying to figure it out.

            “He’s confused. Pressure is increasing inside his brain and parts of his brain are no longer getting oxygen,” Not-Dad said. “It’s a pretty massive bleed. Even if he was at the hospital when it happened it would be pretty iffy.”

            “Fix him!” Dean said.

            “I thought you didn’t want anything,” Not-Dad said. “Didn’t you learn anything?”

            “Fuck you!”

            Sam used the kitchen chair as a kind of walker until he got to his computer then fell into his chair. The dog, Sadie, stood up and padded over and rested her head in his lap. He grabbed his phone and hit something in favorites.

Dean was suddenly in his bed and his phone was ringing. He grabbed it, “Sammy? Sammy! I’m here.” Not-Dad was not in his chair.

            “Dean,” it was a bit garbled.

            “You’re having a stroke, I’m here. Hold on to your phone, I’m going to call 911 then call you right back!”

            He couldn’t remember Sam’s address and he lost precious seconds looking it up. Then he lost time convincing 911 that he couldn’t hang on, he had to call Sam back and they had to hurry. He called Sam back thinking, pick up, pick up, pick up. The phone rang and rang, went to voicemail. He shouldn’t have called 911, he should have just stayed on the phone. Thank God for the fucking dog. He hit redial and on the third ring, Sam picked up. “Sammy, I’m here! Someone’s coming.”

            He could hear Sam’s hoarse breathing, but apparently Sam couldn’t say anything.

            “I’m going to talk to you, Sammy, but you gotta hold on. I want you to hold on, you hear me? I know you want to just let go and you deserve it, you deserve to be allowed to let go but I need you, you hear me? I need you, little brother. We’ll figure something out. You tell me what you need and we’ll figure it out, just don’t die.”

            Then abruptly he really did wake up and sat upright in the bed in the motel room. His phone was on the nightstand. He picked it up and checked. No calls to or from Sam at almost two in the morning. No outgoing call to 911. He got out of bed and opened his laptop and logged onto The Roadhouse.

            Phreakboy was logged on. He sent him a private message.

 

TheRealDeanW: Are you awake?” 

Phreakboy: y

Phreakboy: r y ok?

TheRealDeanW: do you have a headache

Phreakboy: no

 

            “Cas?” Dean said. He knew Cas would hear how scared he was and he wasn’t surprised at the flutter.

            “Dean, what’s wrong.”

            “Cas, I need you to go check Sam. I need you to check his brain. His arteries, for an artery that’s about burst, okay?”

            The angel didn’t question, he was just gone. After a minute his screen said.

 

Phreakboy: wtf?

Phreakboy: how did you know?

Phreakboy: HOW DID YOU KNOW?

TheRealDeanW: vision

TheRealDeanW: tomorrow dude

           

            Cas said, “Dean. What’s going on?”

            Dean said, “Visions suck.”

#


	25. A Bite of Pancake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The Bunker isn’t a good place for me,” Sam said. “Not right now. You should stay there.” Sam smiled. “It remembers you.”
> 
> Dean forced himself to stand, to wait. Sam watched the dog trotting across the green.
> 
> “I wish you could take better care of yourself,” Sam finally murmured. He looked at Dean, considering.

*    *    *

25

            Sam was waiting on the sidewalk to go to breakfast. He folded into the passenger side on the Impala and Dean felt something. Relief. Gratitude. He just didn’t know how much he wanted Sam there. “I called in today,” Sam said. “I don’t have to go in until Tuesday.” It was Thursday which meant a long weekend. “I…if we have to go, I can be ready in fifteen minutes.”

            “Go?”

            “A hunt,” Sam said. “Whatever the vision thing is about.”

            “It wasn’t about a hunt,” Dean said. “It was about you.” He turned the Impala out into traffic. “Where are we going?”

            “Place called Zef’s,” Sam said. “It’s got you written all over it.”

            Dean glanced into his rearview mirror. “We’re being followed.”

            “Yeah, Angelina, TheRealDeanW is in town. They’ve been outside my place since four this morning.”

            “You’re Angie, I’m Brad.”

            Sam smiled. That was good.

#

            Zef’s was awesome. The waitress recommended the pancakes so he got the meat lovers skillet and pancakes. The portions were huge. The coffee was great. Sam got toast and coffee.

            “That’s all?” Dean said.

            “Yes. Don’t,” Sam said.

            “Okay. But have a bite of pancake.”

            Sam dutifully slid his plate over and let Dean cut some of his enormous pancake and slide it on the plate.

            “So the vision,” Dean said. “It was about whether I learned my lesson.”

            Sam took a triangle of pancake and ate it, then drank coffee. It was an _‘I’m a good sport’_ bite. “What kind of lesson?”

            “Not-Dad showed up.”

            “Michael Not-Dad?”

            “Maybe,” Dean said. “More like the big Not-Dad. He has some kind of hard on for you.”

            Sam squinched his face up. “A, I don’t think so and B, should you talk about Him that way?”

            Dean shrugged. “Not my boyfriend. He said he wanted to say thank you for saving the world again and that we’d paid a big price but maybe not as big as Lucifer and I suggested that I didn’t exactly feel sorry for that flaming asshole.”

            “Definitely not Michael,” Sam said.

            Dean quirked an eyebrow.

            “Michael isn’t exactly wired for sympathy. He’s more sword of God.” Sam looked slight to his right. It was a look Dean knew from years of hunting but Sam didn’t bother to put down his coffee. Dean looked without appearing to look.

            Four people were being seated, all men, all not looking at them. All in their twenties and thirties. One of them wore the traditional flannel and Henley of a hunter but two wore commando sweaters and solid colors like they were trying to look like James Bond or something. The fourth guy was wearing camo.

            “You want to go sign an autograph?” Dean said.

            “I don’t have great luck with hunters,” Sam said. “Lots of times they want to shoot me. You were at sympathy for the devil.”

            “Yeah, so Whoever-Not-Dad-Was asked me what I wanted and I told him I didn’t want anything. He said you wanted peace but felt like you didn’t deserve it and if I didn’t want anything you should have it and then he told me you were going to stroke out so when I woke up I sent Cas.” Dean dug into his sausage and hashbrowns.

            “What did me stroking out have to do with any of that?” Sam said.

            Sam was usually five steps ahead of him on stuff like this but he had his blind spots. Moron. Dean took a bite of bacon and eggs and thought for a moment. “I don’t want to live in a world without you in it. Even though you could be peacefully, blissfully happy in heaven. You feel like you don’t deserve heaven and it’s your job to stay here and take care of Cas and feed hungry people and run a website for hunters and not eat and whatever other shit you do.”

            “Could you not talk with your mouth full,” Sam said. “I’m having a rough enough morning as it is.”

            Dean grinned and ostentatiously chewed. “Does this place have pie?”

            “Are you kidding me? You could feed a small country off of that plate!”

            “Not now, later. Anyway, that’s the lesson,” Dean said. “I do want something. And if I’m going to get it, I have to stop treating you like shit.” Sam opened his mouth to protest because Dean knew Sam would go to great lengths to explain why it was not Dean’s fault. Instead Dean slid out of the booth and walked over to the table full of hunters. “Hi,” he said.

            “Hi, Mr. Winchester,” one of the Daniel Craig wanna-be’s said.

            “Dean. John was Mr. Winchester. Are you sightseeing or making trouble?” Dean asked. “Because we’ve had some trouble in the past with hunters. And this is Sammy’s neighborhood so we don’t want trouble.”

            Sam had turned towards them, relaxed, one arm on the back of the booth.

            Grins all around. “No sir, no trouble,” Camo said. “We really did just come by to say hi.”

            “Um,” flannel shirt said, “would you and your brother mind signing my journal?”

            Dean could feel his eyebrows climb his forehead. Sam was behind him. “He’d love to, wouldn’t you, Dean,” Sam said. “Hey, nice.” The guy had a leather journal with a flap, a lot like Dad’s. “Those are hard to find.”

            “If you could sign on this page. I did a salt and burn only it turned out that the ghost was attached to a cursed object,” the guy said. “If I hadn’t read your case notes I would never have thought of a painting, you know?” He paged through the journal until he got to the right place. “Sorry. I don’t draw very well so I take photos with my phone and scan them in.”

            Honestly, photos were way more accurate. John Winchester had drawn monsters because he’d been uncomfortable with any technology more advanced than a photocopier. Dean scrawled his name at the top of the page and then Sam did the same. Then camo and the two Daniel Craig wanna be’s offered their journals. Then everybody wanted selfies. Then they started to ask some questions about something they were hunting but Dean interrupted to say that his breakfast was getting cold and they all but fell all over themselves apologizing.

            The server, a cute girl with a natural and nose stud brought them fresh cups of hot coffee. “You guys actors?”

            “Hunters,” Dean said.

            “Like animals and shit?”

            Dean nodded. “Something like that.”

            “I could never shoot nothin’,” she said, hand on one hip, coffee pot in the other hand. “That’s nasty.”

            “Some days, I feel that way too,” Dean said.

#

            They collected Sadie and Cas and then they all walked. Sam was working on training Sadie to walk well. She would be good for a bit and then forget. When they got to crosswalks, though, she sat perfectly. It was strange to walk through neighborhoods where there were stretches of empty lots, a house, then another stretch of empty lots.

            They ended up at Mt. Elliot Cemetery. Sam said it was pretty and well-maintained. Good place to run and to walk a dog. Sam let her off lead and she trotted off, sniffing. She was such an odd looking thing with her long skinny legs and her hair standing every which way.

“You said Rowena’s curse wasn’t why you wouldn’t come home,” Dean said.

            “It’s not Rowena’s curse,” Sam said.

            “What made you leave?” Dean said.

            “The Box,” Sam said. Dean didn’t expect that. Not at all. “The whole thing with the Box was crazy,” Sam said. “Not like ‘oh that’s just crazy’ but like ‘destroy us’ crazy.”

            Cas nodded. “The Box was bad from the start.”

            “It’s always a close call,” Dean said. “We came through.” His fault his fault his fault.

            “Did we?” Sam said.

            “Yeah!” Dean said. “Look at you. You and your dog and … stuff.”

            “Me and my dog meet with a trainer three evenings a week. She’s becoming a service dog.” Sam ran his hands through his hair.

            “For what,” Dean said. “You’re not blind.” Stupid thing to say.

            “The nightmares, the anxiety, the flashbacks. We’re not normal, Dean.” Sam took a shuddering breath. “I promised Cas I’d stay alive as long as I could. That means not dying at fifty from alcoholism or a… stroke, I guess. Since seeing…the Morningstar… again, it’s been bad. And—” Sam held up his hand, “I know, I broke it, it was my mess to clean up.”

            “Not you,” Dean said, “Our mess. Ours to clean up.”

            Sam shrugged. “It didn’t feel like ours. What happened with the Box was not ours. What happened with the Box, the unlock, that was yours. Faith, love, and light.”

            “Dean made a mistake,” Cas said. “You can’t keep punishing him for that.”

            “I’m not punishing him,” Sam said.

            “You miss him,” Cas said.

            “It’s like not having my right hand,” Sam agreed. “But it’s not punishment.”

            “You’re punishing yourself,” Dean said. “You know, it hurts me, too.”

“I know,” Sam said. “Believe me, I think about it all the time. But I’m going to try to stay away for awhile. Try to get healthier so I can stop hurting you. I can’t make you get better, I can’t make you do anything. But I can try to change me. You’re not alone and the Bunker… it’s a good place for you. Cas is with you so you’re not alone. You’ll be okay, Dean.”

            “Sam,” Cas said, “I don’t understand this. You are soul mates. This feels wrong to me. You’re hurting Dean.”

            Sam looked at Cas and Dean had seen that look. It was the look on Sam’s face when Dean lashed out. The way Sam just took it, believed it.

            “Cas,” Dean said, “Sam might be right. I’m an asshole, especially at…I mean, I’ve said some stuff to Sam that I should never have said. The stuff with the box, that’s all on me and…I need to get my shit together.”

            Naked surprise on the kid’s face. Why, because Dean was defending him to Cas?

            It was hard to stand there. Hard to say the next thing. “What do you need, Sam?” Dean asked.

            Sam shook his head. “I don’t need anything. The Jesuits are continuing my stipend, I think because of the whole working with charity thing. Or maybe the paperwork hasn’t caught up, but I’m okay.”

            Dean took a deep breath. He was…scared. Part of Dean went, okay, he answered, you’re off the hook. Dean made himself stick with it. “Not like that,” Dean said. “Like Cas here needs us to be in the world as long as we can because we’re pretty much all he’s got. So for him we’ve got to see if we can get him into heaven if we get there.” And before that, maybe they could find him some people who care about him like they did. Charlie had.

            Cas had his head cocked.

            “And me,” Dean doggedly continued, because he _should_ have been like Sam. Sam needed Dean but had let him stay in heaven. “I gotta figure out what you need. I want to ask you what you need but I’m not going to again. You decide what you want to say.” Sam could decide if he wanted to go after Rowena. He decide if he wanted Dean to go away. “You decide if you want the Bunker and, and I’ll leave. You decide, Sam.”

            “The Bunker isn’t a good place for me,” Sam said. “Not right now. You should stay there.” Sam smiled. “It remembers you.”

            Dean forced himself to stand, to wait. Sam watched the dog trotting across the green.

            “I wish you could take better care of yourself,” Sam finally murmured. He looked at Dean, considering.

            It made Dean mad because it wasn’t what he was asking for. He needed Sam to talk about Sam and here Sam was talking about Dean. He ground his teeth together. Just get a grip, Winchester, he thought.

            “If you could just feel better,” Sam said. “If you didn’t … hate yourself so much sometimes.”

            It was hard not to lash out. Hard not to snarl, _we came here to talk about you_.

            “Like right now,” Sam said. “You can’t stand it and it boils over.” He took a few steps away and raised his voice. “Sadie! Come on, girl.”

            She lifted her head and then trotted over to him, tail high like a plume. He was calling the dog because he was … upset. He didn’t look upset. He just looked like Sam. Thoughtful, watchful. But maybe his anxiety was starting to build because Dean was angry. _…_ _an argument he had earlier in the day, and that balloon will rupture…_ Cas had checked him over, healed it, that tiny little bomb in his head was gone. It was a sign, though, of all the years, the wear. The dog came to Sam and leaned against him.

            “Okay,” Dean said. “I don’t know how to do that, but okay. I’ll…I’ll try, Sam.”

  
#

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hard to know whether to post after that mid-season cliff hanger for Season 11.


	26. Lie to Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What, I mean, are you eating and stuff?”
> 
> Sam looked like he did when Dean asked him a question that he felt like Dean shouldn’t and then something else crossed his face. There was a moment where it was clearly a battle and then Sam exhaled and said, “I’m…not going to answer that.”
> 
> Dean blinked. “You’re not?”
> 
> Sam grinned. “Nope.”
> 
> Dean felt himself grinning. “Like it’s wearing off?”
> 
> Sam shrugged. “Maybe?”

*   *   *

26

            Sam drove to the Bunker for Thanksgiving. Dean was surprised, he would have thought that Thanksgiving was a big time for food banks but Sam explained it was the time of year that they had the most volunteers. Besides, his bad shoulder was bothering him so he wasn’t much use in a loading bay and there wasn’t exactly a grant writing emergency.

            Hunters had found the Bunker and the location, while not on the Roadhouse, was now common knowledge. Not a real surprise, they were hunters. While Sam was stopped at the grocery in Lebanon, picking up beer and cranberry sauce (Dean had everything else) a guy and a girl (her arm in a sling) sidled up to him at the beer case and said, “Hi, Mr. Winchester.”

            He’d not seen them coming which made him jump.

            “Sorry!” the girl said. “We just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving. We’re on our way to Texas. Would you tell Dean that Mike and Irene say Happy Thanksgiving?”

            When Sam and Sadie got to the Bunker he relayed the message and Dean laughed. Dean posted on The Roadhouse that MsAdler and DreadPirateBowie had snuck up on the mighty Sam Winchester in a grocery store and kudos to them and all, but in the future, if you wanted to say hello, please don’t sneak because you might get yourself accidently shot.

            Sadie wandered the kitchen and the library sniffing but seemed reluctant to stray too far from Sam.

            “How’s her training going?” Dean asked.

            “Good,” Sam said. “She’s doing good. How are you doing?”

            “Great,” Dean said, “I’m fine. You want a beer?”

            Sam hesitated and Dean raised an eyebrow. “Trying to cut back on alcohol,” Sam said. “I don’t drink much anymore. Also trying to cut back on caffeine. But yeah, I’d like a beer.”

            Dean brought back a bottle of beer. “If you don’t drink coffee or beer, there isn’t much left.”

            “Water. You remember that stuff. Comes out of the tap.”

            Something occurred to Dean. “Is it only a question if I ask it, or was that a question you had to answer when I just looked like, you know…”

            Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Doesn’t much matter.”

            “So,” Dean said. He slid down in front of the TV next to Sam. “I’m doing yoga.”

            Sam grinned. “Really?”

            “Yeah. You know, I asked you for stuff about, you know…” PTSD, depression, all that shit that Sam wanted him to think about. “I tried meditating. Dude, I can not meditate.”

            Sam laughed. He really did sound pretty good.

            “It said yoga was kind of the same thing. Lisa showed me some stuff the year, you know,” Dean waved his hand.

            “Yeah,” Sam said. “When I was in the Cage and running around soulless.”

            “I knew the basics, downward dog and all that. I thought I could try it.”

            “Does it help?” Sam asked.

            Dean shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.”

            Sam looked at him for a long minute. Dean was afraid he was going to say thanks. “I did it in college for a couple of months,” he said instead.

            “Yeah, I remember when you were a yoga instructor when we were chasing the fish taco,” Dean said. “Remember the shorts?”

            “Oh yeah,” Sam rolled his eyes.

            “What, I mean, are you eating and stuff?”

            Sam looked like he did when Dean asked him a question that he felt like Dean shouldn’t and then something else crossed his face. There was a moment where it was clearly a battle and then Sam exhaled and said, “I’m…not going to answer that.”

            Dean blinked. “You’re not?”

            Sam grinned. “Nope.”

            Dean felt himself grinning. “Like it’s wearing off?”

            Sam shrugged. “Maybe?”

            “So you can lie to me? Lie to me dude.”

            Sam opened his mouth, “I’m actually fa—” shook his head. “I was going to try to tell you I was forty-nine but I can’t. I can’t lie. But I can not tell you things. It’s hard but I can.”

            “That’s awesome,” Dean said. He never thought he would be so happy. “How’s your sex life, Sammy?”

            “Fuck you,” Sam said after a minute.

            “Now I know that’s a lie,” Dean said. Sam lunged at him and there was an impromptu wrestling match that ended with Sam pinned to the floor and Sadie barking and wagging her tail furiously. They were both laughing like maniacs.

            After they caught their breaths Sam said, “Cas said he was coming by tonight.”

            “He’s coming for Thanksgiving tomorrow,” Dean said. “It’ll be nice. I’m making a turkey breast because we don’t need a full turkey for you, me, and Mr. Molecule.”

            “What’s for dinner tonight,” Sam said. “I’m starved and all I brought besides cranberry sauce was dog food.”

            “I was thinking burgers?” Dean said tentatively.

            Sam dropped his head back on the couch, “God I love your burgers. I remember the first time you made them.”

            Sam eating was Sam happy. Sam happy to be here. With Dean. Sam, who hated holidays. It would happen. Some day Sam would come back home. “I’ll take care of you, little brother. Burgers coming up. Pick out a movie and call Cas.”

 

Fin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to all of you who encouraged me. I've been living with two fics in this AU for more than half a year. Between Atonement and Heart's Needle, I've written over 90,000 words. That's a novel's worth of words (and I stopped working on an original novel to do it.) 
> 
> I learned some interesting things, and relearned some interesting things about writing prose.
> 
> Thank you all for the opportunity to play in the Supernatural community.
> 
> This fic owes a lot to sabath68, semirahrose, waterbird13, bittersamclub (and ALL the bittersamclubgirls) peanutbutterandbananasandwiches, and a whole host of very smart twitter people. Also to Crowroad and amberdreams who welcomed me when I first came to this community.
> 
> I forgot a bunch of people, I am sure.
> 
> This was un-betaed, none of the people I thanked are responsible for anything except inspiration.
> 
> For the record, I did not know that Jared Padelecki has a dog named Sadie when I wrote this. Sadie the dog is named after another Sadie altogether.


End file.
